The Praxis of Street Medics: Ideas for Building A New World

From Fifth Estate #416, Spring 2025

It’s a grey, wet day, so everyone who can find a spot is packed into the warehouse instead of spreading out across the grounds outside. In pockets around the space, people are skilling up or building art. Doc is teaching a small group how to be street medics. Mass arrests, street battles, teargas, and more rain will come in the days ahead and people are readying themselves for the tens of thousands arriving to fight the machinations of global capitalism. It is April 2000, Washington, D.C.

Protocols for Common Injuries from Police Weapons

From Crimethinc

Conscious of these risks, in many countries revolutionary groups and activist movements have developed their own medical support networks for demonstrations or direct actions. This practice differs from humanitarian groups like the Red Cross, because we don’t pretend to be neutral. We take a clear political stance and an active role in the conflict and in the support that we bring to our comrades in struggle. [...] For us, medical knowledge comes with a political reflection on how we put it into practice, to avoid reproducing the relationships of domination, management, and dispossession that characterize the medical institution. As street medics, we want to make the consent of injured people a priority and give them the information they need to make clear and informed choices for themselves.

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