Hundreds honor Urban Alchemy worker fatally shot while on the job

(BCN) -- Hundreds of workers from Urban Alchemy, a nonprofit that provides public safety services on the streets of San Francisco, gathered on the steps of City Hall on Tuesday to honor one of their colleagues who was fatally shot last week. In the early evening of Sept. 26, 60-year-old Joey Alexander was on shift when he was fatally shot outside San Francisco's Main Library branch.

Alexander, a street ambassador with Urban Alchemy, was shot after asking someone to refrain from allegedly using drugs out in the open, according to Urban Alchemy. Urban Alchemy is an organization that contracts with the city to provide outreach services and crime deterrence, especially in areas with homelessness and open-air drug use such as the Tenderloin neighborhood.

Street ambassadors, who were mostly fo