Good Place for A Test Case

Driving home from dinner two weeks ago, Senator Mark Hatfield was suddenly confronted by a reality that has become commonplace for less exalted residents of Washington. Only six blocks from the gleaming Capitol dome, the Oregon Republican watched as a man 20 yards ahead of him blasted away with a gun at another man. Hatfield zoomed through a red light to flee the scene. He did not call the police. "I assure you if in Washington you tell the police you saw somebody shooting somebody, they'd say, 'So what?' " Hatfield explained.

Last week Washington recorded its 120th murder of 1989; there had been 73 committed at the same point a year ago. At that bloody rate, last year's record 372 killings will be surpassed by the end of this summer.

To curb the violence, officials have been advocating steps that may verge on martial law. A federal judge last week blocked on constitutional grounds implementation of an 11 p.m. curfew for minors. New Hampshire Senator Warren Rudman suggested putting the city's 4,000 beleaguered police under federal control. Congressman Stan Parris, a Virginia Republican, drafted legislation to appoint a federal public-safety administrator. There were even cries for deployment of federal troops or National Guardsmen.

Federal drug czar William Bennett is on the brink of declaring Washington the nation's first "high-intensity drug-trafficking area," making the city a "shock-treatment" test case in the war on drugs. He will soon announce a federal-local strike force that will try to close down the district's nearly 100 open-air drug markets. Bennett's staff is also toying with the possibility of converting abandoned military buildings into makeshift jails for drug pushers. Since 1986, Washington police have arrested almost 40,000 suspects in drug cases, but the District has long since run out of courtrooms to try them and prison cells in which to incarcerate them. Police Chief Maurice Turner said on TV last week that the cops were virtually powerless to stop warfare between rival drug dealers. Whether a cessation of hostilities will result from Bennett's shock treatment for the nation's capital remains very much to be seen.