The training sessions frequently draw what Williams calls "crazy wingnuts who want to fight the government in a shack in the woods." Each class includes at least one extremist who is attracted by the mention of "chemical warfare," she says, and it's not terribly uncommon for the group to kick out would-be medics. As a collective, Colorado Street Medics operates under a consensus-approved standard of practice, and tolerance is a big factor.
"There's always someone who comes in with camo pants tucked into their knee-high boots and is like, 'What do I do with the nerve gas?'" Williams laughs. "They're real. So many uninformed people want to join, and it's like, if you're part of We Are Change, you're not anti-racist. We're anti-racist and anti-supremacy, and we tell those people that we don't think this is the right space for them."
Mark Manger
Zoe Williams joined Colorado Street Medics as a preteen — and heads the group today.
Occupy Denver inspired both Bobby Guerrero and Liz Kitchen to train as street medics.
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The members of Colorado Street Medics take their work seriously, and they defend it against anyone who might damage their reputation — which includes wannabe medics and infiltrators. When Williams notices someone with duct-tape crosses all over his outfit, she'll approach and ask about his past training. There aren't many trainers, and within a few links — Doc or Zoe or Grace or Pavlos or Petros or Iris — real street medics will find they share some connection.
Although Williams has worked as an EMT tech and intends to study Chinese medicine, most of her fellow medics do not pursue medicine professionally. Connor McFarland, a nineteen-year-old peace and justice studies major, joined after working with medics at Midwest Rising, a protest in his home town of St. Louis; before he became a medic, he was a member of Occupy. The same goes for Liz Kitchen and Bobby Guerrero, both septum-pierced anarchists who became disillusioned with the local movement and "wanted to be more than an obnoxious body," Guerrero says. Mano Cockrum, a professional nanny, was afraid of needles and got sick at the sight of blood when she joined the collective in 2005 to work at the Transform Columbus Day Alliance protest. While the anti-Columbus rallies attracted varying degrees of police attention every year, Cockrum noticed that there were always minor health risks — activists cut themselves accidentally or forgot water or sunscreen — and she realized she could do more for the cause helping them.
Two months after she started medic training seven years ago, Cockrum was at a Tacos Junior at 2 a.m. when a bloody and confused man, badly beaten, ran into the restaurant and collapsed on top of Cockrum, the only diner prepared to catch him. While waiting for paramedics to arrive, she used what she could from her training manual. "I remember thinking that if this had happened a few months earlier, I would not have been prepared," Cockrum says. "Ever since, I always am." And ever since, she's had her medical kit at the ready: "Being a medic isn't just something you do at protests."
The members of Colorado Street Medics are not fashionable; they never have been. Reflecting Rosen's influence, they wear trucker hats and long sleeves and sunscreen. At the 2008 Democratic National Convention, when approximately fifty medics from across the country converged on Denver, the Coloradans could be easily identified by their practical but unimpressive duds.
"At the DNC, I was really jealous of all these medics in tank tops and jean skirts and booty shorts with their hair down and their makeup on," Williams says. "Maybe I can sew some medic pockets into a skirt and make this work."
During the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, though, her clothes made Williams's time in jail more comfortable. As police officers attempted to clear the streets of protesters, they used tall orange nets, one of which trapped an eighteen-year-old Williams, who was charged with parading without a permit and disobeying a lawful order. Those charges were later dropped, but they continue to earn her money: Every few months, Williams opens an envelope and finds a check from one of a handful of class-action lawsuits she joined after the RNC action.
When Colorado medics traveled to Dulac, Louisiana, after hurricanes Gustave and Ike, they found boxes of Mary Kate & Ashley hats donated to the town instead of medical supplies. They wore the hats and called themselves the Rubber Boots Medic Collective as they worked on pallets that frequently sank into the swamp mud.
But the medics don't take every request for help. When asked to travel outside of the state, they usually stay home unless the mission is long enough to make a significant dent. After the earthquake in Haiti, for example, they opted to send donations instead of attempt a visit.
"There's ethical tourism, and I believe that's just a way to make yourself feel better about your exotic vacation," Williams says, touching her index finger to her lips to make a point. This is a gesture she borrowed from Rosen. "I feel pretentious going to Egypt and saying, 'Here's how you rebel. This is how revolution works.' But it's really easy to say 'Oh, look at that stupid white person' when you're being stupid, too."
