Mounting Lessons from a Summer of Political Opposition- Part 1

Accounts from running as a volunteer “street medic” during Chicago’s 2012 NATO summit

Walking up State Street, about to cross Adams- a street that runs only westbound- I look to my right to check for traffic before crossing. I get about halfway across when I hear distant yelling: “Clear the street, make way!” I look to my left and two dozen mounted police, wearing baby blue helmets with visors down, knee high black leather boots, the horses covered in armor protecting their eyes and legs briskly pass by me, heading east. Not a standard sight for everyday Chicago. Mounted police in pairs is not uncommon in the downtown sector of the city, but two-dozen wearing combat attire, and at a gallop only means one thing: I’m close.

I continue heading east on State, I hit Madison, a minor shopping section of the loop, south of the river. As I hit this intersection, slowly, first in pairs, then groups of five, then all of sudden hundreds of people convene onto the intersection. Carrying picket signs, shouting slogans of:

“Banks got bailed out, we got sold out,” and “money for schools not for wars, money for healthcare, not for wars,”

Coming up State street is the mounted battalion that passed me moments ago. About fifty bicycle cops come from madison and Dearborn heading east to cork off (a maneuver where the police line up the bikes in a line front-to-back creating a barrier ) to the west side of State street. What was moments ago a normal, quiet street in this small shopping section within the business district of Chicago is now sprawling with thousands of people, bullhorns echoing off the skyscrapers, blue police lights reflecting off the soft blue of the setting night sky.

The mounted police line up directly in front of the protesters path. The crowd comes to a standstill. You can feel the tension on both sides: The protesters growing impatient with being corralled for a permitted march, the police being verbally abused, police commanders, wearing the standard white shirt with gold trim, hardly able to the hear static garble of their radios as they communicate with all the various areas in the city seeing similar political dissent due to the NATO summit hosting less than a mile away.

Suddenly behind me, coming up north on State street, four white unmarked fifteen passenger vans pull up in a slant about a half a block away. In a militaristic styled tactic, one-by-one, the vans doors open and the heavy “turtle shell” armored police units- specially trained for crowd control- begin to pour out, all lining up across the street south of Madison. They wear a dark forest green uniform, with digital armor, green helmets with visors. In their hands are three feet long black batons, and hanging at their sides are green gas masks. They make three horizontal lines, the first two lines are the baton wielding units, behind them are about a dozen units with long rifles armored with either beanbag rounds or tear gas.

In front of them pulls up a police pickup truck pulling a trailer with a military grade LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device) mounted to the back. Loud enough to hear, but not painful, a “white shirt” comes over the LRAD:

“You are being given an order to disperse. Clear the street immediately. This is your only warning.”

After the order is given, the crowd grows further agitated. The first hundred or so sit down in middle of the street, locking arms together. In front of them, another group circles around that remains standing, many begin to put goggles over their eyes, cover their noses and mouth with masks and scarfs as they read and prepare for a possible tear gas dispersal due to the gas masks at the sides of the heavy armored units. Half the mounted battalion splits and moves directly in front of the heavy armored units.

So, at the corner, south of the sitting protesters is a line of mounted police, behind them are the heavy armored and beanbag/tear gas lines. To the left of them, the east side of the street is blocked by the remainder of the mounted units. To their right, the west side, is the bicycle line corking off the path. Behind them, police cars close in slowly. The protesters want to head south to get to the area where the NATO summit is being held, but are closed off from every direction. At this point, if the crowd even did want to disperse, they have nowhere to go.

After a few minutes, though at the time felt much longer, the mounted unit directly in front starts to slowly move towards the sitting protesters in the intersection. The crowd does not budge and begins shouting:

“Get those animals off those horses!”

The mounted police get within a foot of the standing protesters and then stop. Both sides give no way. The lieutenant of the mounted units gives an order and all of a sudden all the police horses turn sideways and begin a side-step move slowly towards the crowd. The sideways facing horses prevents anyone from getting past them as they slowly move in tighter and tighter. The protesters standing in front of the group sitting are forced further and further back until they are practically standing on top of the sitting group. Very quickly, the entire crowd is packed in so tight people are falling over one another. They begin to shout that they have nowhere to go, every side is blocked and the mounted units continues to move in.

The horses begin to step on the crowd’s feet, the crowd begins yelling for them to stop, they have nowhere to go. One horse looks to get spooked by the commotion and steps on a sitting protester. She is a small petite girl, who immediately begins to hold her side and cry out in pain. The police continue moving in. The protesters, now furious that a sitting protester has been stepped on and unable to get out, begin to shove at the horses. Like a stadium trying to start a wave, slowly growing larger and larger, the same happens with the protesters and out-of-nowhere one of the mounted officers makes an over-the-head strike with his baton to a male protester. Like a coin that has been flicked, suddenly the protesters turn from peaceful disobedience to mob-like reaction. The protester who was struck grabs the mounted officer and pulls him off the horse.

Like the crack of a whip, officers swarm from every direction, the LRAD begins letting out a piercingly loud siren, batons starts flinging in the air in slow motion, like a carpenter hammering a nail. The crowd starts to push in every direction, many protesters, not wanting to get violent, are caught between stampedes of other protesters and the police riot in front of them.

The crowd pushes toward the bike police line, breaking past them and the cork line. For mobility, the bike police do not wear any armor aside from the standard cavalier vest and helmets with visors. Once the cork line is broken, the bike police do not engage since they are not as prepared for hand-to-hand combat. The crowd at the intersection slowly begins to thin out.

As crowds and police begin to file off in every direction, I begin to hear faint yells for help. In Chicago and many cities, during a police action, like a large protest, if the police deem the area unsafe, paramedics can not go in and tend to the injured. Now in every direction, it grows louder and more clear as my adrenaline begins to kick in.

“Medic! Medic! Someone help! Medic!”

Two people come rushing towards me on the sidewalk, in between them, they are holding up someone who looks almost unconscious. He’s holding his hand over a head wound, blood is all over his arm, his white shirt is coded with red splotches, looking like a Fresco water-painting. Everything begins to move in super slow motion- they put their buddy down in front of me, one of the two helping carry the guy over, is a young girl, maybe twenty, same age as me, she is in tears and keeps caressing the face of the injured male.

“Josh, Josh, can you hear me? Stay with me. Oh my God. Help! Someone help!”

The girl keeps turning her attention to Josh then back out calling for a medic. I look further down the road, someone is laying in the street as another person has their hands up at the rifled units who have their guns up and pointing. People are walking past me in large groups with wounds, some quickly discoloring, others oozing blood, many other groups of random strangers carrying injured out of the chaos. They all keep motioning for me to follow them. I’m frozen in the moment, physically and mentally.

The other person that helped carry Josh, a male, about twenty-two, looks at me. He keeps asking for help. I look at him confused. He then points down to my left sleeve and my duffle bag around my neck. I look, and suddenly I feel sick. On my left sleeve is a stitched red cross emblem, over my shoulder is an orange medical bag with a blue EMS ensign. Around my neck is a stethoscope, on my back is patch reading ‘Street Medic’ in red and below that ‘First Aid.’

I’m the help they’re calling out for.

To be continued…

Next parts will be linked here when available.

(c) Nathan Olson

Dec. 2013