No Gunfire This Time, He Promises -- A Year After Shootout, Neighborhood Is Quieter

TACOMA - Bill Foulk is having a barbecue Sunday. But don't worry. He says it won't end like last time.

When Foulk's neighbors and a group of his fellow off-duty Army Rangers from Fort Lewis gathered at his home in the Hilltop neighborhood for an anti-crime barbecue a year ago Sunday, confrontations with suspected drug dealers on the block led to a half-hour shootout, with back yards as firing lines. Miraculously, no one was injured.

Foulk, a Ranger staff sergeant, does not invite comparisons. Nor will he invite his colleagues to bring their weapons, as he did last time. This party, he said with a smile, is not ``BYOG'' (Bring Your Own Gun).

There's no need, he said; the shootout and ensuing uproar have changed things.

The suspected dealers were evicted from the house they occupied in the 2300 block of Ash Street. The neighbors, despite accusations of vigilantism, felt they had defended their homes after trying in vain to get police to help.

Police and city officials, who had been working behind the scenes to defuse the drug situation on the block, were forced to deal with the problem in the glare of the public spotlight.

``It's the end of an era - the end of what we went through last year,'' Foulk said last week. ``There's a heightened sense of awareness on the part of the people who live here.''

The awareness has translated itself into a block that now has few problems, residents say, although rival street gangs continue to sell drugs and kill each other in drive-by shootings blocks away.

``We're all still here,'' said Ash Street resident Richard Grim, who did not participate in the shooting. ``It's been better. Quieter.''

The incident still angers some community leaders. Tacoma Mayor Karen Vialle grimaces when she recalls it.

``I think it hurt the city's image,'' she said. ``It was just a staged grandstand show. . . . What we've proved during this past year is that neighbors working peacefully with police is what gets things resolved.''

At Ruben Galvan's house next door to Foulk's, most of the bullet holes left by the shootout have been concealed by furniture.

Others show plainly, from the perfectly round hole in the amber glass of the front door to the jagged splinters of wood and plaster from a shotgun blast in his wife's study.

Now, ``there's gunshots two blocks up, and drug dealing two blocks over that way,'' Galvan said, pointing every which way but at his street.

``We let those people know we don't want 'em here.''

Galvan is a Vietnam veteran. He said he has post-traumatic stress syndrome, induced by prolonged combat and a stint as a prisoner of war, for which he has never received treatment. He said he suffered flashbacks frequently - until the shootout.

``This released so much . . . venom that was in me,'' said Galvan, who is writing an article on the subject for Soldier of Fortune magazine. ``I'm quieter now than I'd been in a long time.''

The police, though they objected strenuously to the residents taking matters into their own hands, say the shootout changed them a little, too.

``When somebody says something's going to be violent, listen to them,'' said Tacoma Police Capt. Dave Olsen, head of special investigations, including narcotics. ``Go up and find out what's going on.''

Olsen said that while police tried hard to respond quickly to all the complaints of drug dealing a year ago, they may try harder now, knowing what could happen if they don't.

Police also have more manpower than they did a year ago - 30 new officers were hired this year as part of an ongoing program to beef up the department.

Other things have happened that encourage officials and neighbors alike about the drug war on Hilltop:

-- A group of code-enforcement officers, social workers and police have formed a Drug Elimination Task Force, designed to get rid of crack houses from a number of angles.

-- There have been fewer calls this year to ``Crak-Trak,'' the special hotline police set up to track complaints about drug operations, according to Olsen.

Olsen said he has more personnel available to respond to complaints now that the Goodwill Games - and their massive security needs - are over.

-- Starting in January, the police department will go almost completely to community-based coverage, with lieutenants and their patrols assigned to sectors of the city, Vialle said.

The Ash Street residents were angry about Police Chief Ray Fjetland's transfer of several community officers from their area when the shootout occurred.

The apparent failure Tuesday of Pierce County's Proposition 2, which would allow the county to levy an additional 0.1 percent sales tax for beefed-up law enforcement, may throw a monkey wrench into the city's plans to add more officers. But Vialle vows the money will be found somewhere.

The most meaningful signs to the residents - and the only trustworthy ones - are those evident on their own block.

The neighborhood does seem quieter. Children maneuver two-wheelers down the street, play in their yards and walk with their parents and friends, apparently without fear.

It's still a defensive kind of safety, however. Most residents say they own guns; some say they carry them wherever they go.

Is that any way to live?

Even Ruben Galvan, owner of four guns, had to pause.

``No, it is not,'' he answered, exhaling sharply.

``I have to agree with that. That's no way to live.''