# The Badge — It's all about the usual suspects on North Beach beat



## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

By John Koopman
San Francisco Chronicle
SAN FRANCISCO - Officer Mark Alvarez walks down Columbus Avenue in San Francisco's North Beach, looking for his regulars.
It's the middle of the afternoon, but that doesn't mean much to the North Beach regulars - the chronic alcoholics, the terminally homeless and the perpetually troublesome wander the streets at all hours. 
Alvarez knows them all. He's arrested some of them dozens of times. For theft, for public drunkenness, for assault. The list goes on. So does the relationship between beat cop and petty criminal.
Alvarez finds G sitting on a curb on Vallejo Street at Columbus. G is the first letter of his last name. He's an elderly man with slicked-back gray hair. He looks to be late 60s, maybe in his 70s. He talks slowly and moves slower.
"Hi Mark," he says, scratching his chest.
"You been drinking, G?" Alvarez asks.
"Naw, man. I'm just mindin' my own business."
G has a bandage over one eye. It's the kind of wound you get in a fight, and Alvarez asks him about it. G says he tripped and fell one night at a homeless shelter. Alvarez gets the name and number of G's social worker and says he's going to call to see about better living arrangements.

Full Article: http://www.policeone.com/news/1367194/


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