By Matt Smith, David Sjostedt : sfstandard – excerpt
A star-shaped pattern of blood left over from a Tuesday night shooting near the Asian Art Museum might not have been notable for a city that had 222 victims of gun violence last year, except the blood came from a man whose job is tamping down violence in the dangerous San Francisco neighborhood.
The unnamed shooting victim works for Urban Alchemy, a nonprofit that employs a cadre of reflective-vest-wearing “ambassadors” to help patrol dangerous streets in the Tenderloin and some adjacent neighborhoods. They have become ubiquitous in central parts of the city since Mayor London Breed announced last year that Urban Alchemy workers would play a key role in an ambitious public safety plan.
But Tuesday night’s confrontation raises questions about whether the program’s managers are risking staff members’ safety by having them do the work of security guards, who would normally require a license from the state. The incident involved an unarmed ambassador being shot while trying to stop two men from selling drugs, according to an Urban Alchemy director who spoke to The Standard on the condition of anonymity…(more)