Meet the BALM Squad

Boston Area Liberation Medic Squad member Sandy McKinley was sitting on the grass near the first aid tent on Boston Common when the text message came through on his Nokia: "March is at FleetCenter. WATER NEEDED."

It was the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Boston, and a raucous parade of about 400 anarchists and Greens had reached the convention center's "soft zone," a blockade of jersey barriers, sand-filled dump trucks and phalanxes of riot cops with batons and compressor rifles. The afternoon was pushing 85 degrees, and the demonstrators were getting thirsty.

Minutes later, I was following McKinley and three others as they toted a five- gallon plastic jug across the Common toward the FleetCenter, about half a mile away. The medics were wearing military-style pants and black t-shirts; all sported red duct tape crosses across their backs or on their courier bags. McKinley, a certified EMT, wore a blue Star of Life emblem with a snake coiled around a raised fist.

Sirens pierced the air, and we stopped to watch as ten school buses filled with riot cops, followed by several empty paddy wagons, raced past them down Beacon Street toward the site of the protest.

"Looks like a shit pond," said a medic who identified himself only as the Captain. "And we're the first ones in the dinghy."

Founded in the summer of 2001, the BALM Squad is part of a nationwide network of activists who provide emergency medical care to protesters. Known as "action medics," these volunteers enter into areas deemed unsafe for ordinary rescue workers and treat those hurt by batons, rubber bullets, pepper spray and other police weapons. During peaceful situations – the norm in Boston during the convention – the medics help protesters stay healthy with sunscreen and water.

Action medics have existed in one form or another since the Vietnam era, but it was the violent police response to the 1999 anti-WTO demonstrations in Seattle – in which dozens of protesters were injured by tear gas, rubber bullets and concussion grenades – that sparked the current movement. Today, there are action medic groups throughout the United States, producing a daunting array of acronyms: In addition to the BALM Squad, there's MANY (Medical Activists of New York), BARHC (Bay Area Radical Health Collective), NEAMA (North East Action Medic Association), TRAM (Three Rivers Action Medics), CAM (Chicago Action Medics), DAMN (DC Action Medical Network), and several others.

Since Seattle, action medics have been present at every large anti-globalization demonstration in North America. For many medics, these protests are an opportunity to reunite, and share gruesome stories. While there have been injuries at nearly every protest, most medics single out the November 2003 Free Trade Area of the Americas summit in Miami as a particularly egregious example of police violence. Human rights groups condemned Miami police for what they regarded as excessive violence – including shooting protesters with rubber bullets at point-blank range and bludgeoning protesters with long batons as they tried to flee. According to Amnesty International, Miami police appear to have deliberately targeted the medics as they were treating the wounded. John Timoney, the Miami chief of police who coordinated security for the FTAA summit, served as a consultant for DNC security.

"I'm not really a single issue person," said Joey Fox, an editor who signed up with the BALM Squad six weeks before the convention. "Being involved with the medics allows me to feel like I have a valuable role at mass mobilizations and demonstrations while at the same time helping the infrastructure of activism."

Fox is also a press contact for the DNC Medic Organizing Group, which coordinated with action medic groups from cities across the country to bring volunteers to Boston for the DNC. At any given time during the convention, she said, there were between 15 and 30 medics on the streets, always in pairs.