By then, Williams had taken over as leader of the collective. That year's Columbus Day protest was the first large event she was responsible for; the next year came the Democratic National Convention. In the days since Rosen ran the group, the rigid structure has softened somewhat: Itemized lists of what to pack, which used to include trash bags and three types of jerky, slimmed down as medics embraced their own instincts. Today the collective reaches all of its decisions through consensus.
"There are these moments of self-doubt when it's like, 'Am I doing the right thing?'" Williams says. "It took a lot of affirmation to go from decades of experience to this young punk-rock girl who's a crazy feminist."
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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Rosen's memory remains a unifying force in the Colorado community, and the collective plans to commemorate his life as a way of educating others on the history of street medicine. His wife and children have donated several boxes of history that now line the walls of a space inside Denver's 27 Social Centre, a spot that Williams is transforming into the Street Medic Museum — the first such display in the world. Along with her own medical books are Wounded Knee patches, a Sundance insignia, a WTO protest call, a guidebook Rosen wrote on acupuncture, and Velcro armbands marked with the Star of Life.
Williams picks up a few. They are plain, with the word "MEDIC" scrawled in all caps in Rosen's hand, and they are detachable. In the early days of the movement, when law enforcement targeted medics, they fashioned insignia that could be easily removed if the need to escape anonymously should arise. The theory was that if officials wanted to get protesters to leave a space, they needed to get rid of the people who made them comfortable in that space — even if that meant hauling medics off to jail. Although Williams hopes those days are gone, they're a part of the community's history. And that era belongs in the museum.
Maybe in the future, Occupy Denver will hold a space in the museum, but it won't be through flags or peace signs. Williams jokes that she might include the shared toothpaste tube, complete with its handwritten note.
But when Occupy Wall Street is done — if it is ever done — there will be another battle cry to answer. As members of Colorado Street Medics often say, street medics are military medics without the military to protect them. "I sort of see the Colorado Street Medics as being this stable torch-bearer," Keller says. "They're a real piece of living history, an organization that has roots deeper than most other collectives. They're this crazy thing of their own, and they always have been. Who knows what's coming for them?"
