The following statement was issued on 19 July by the <a href="http://melbsmc.org/">Melbourne Street Medics</a>, a collective of first aid and medical professionals who provide Victoria’s activist community with free and high quality first aid.
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On 18 July, first aiders and medical professionals working as part of the Melbourne Street Medic Collective (MelbSMC) provided medical support to anti-racist/fascist protesters at the Rally Against Racism near the Victorian Parliament.
During the course of this rally, officers from Victoria Police deployed chemical weapons in the form of OC (Pepper) spray against the crowd. As a result several people required urgent medical attention and eventually hospitalisation, directly as a result of exposure to the spray.
While providing assistance to a casualty experiencing respiratory distress and awaiting medical evacuation via Ambulance Victoria, medics from MelbSMC were heavily sprayed with OC spray by Victoria Police officers.
This was done in spite of clear and loud instructions from the crowd and a protective ring of protesters around the medics and their casualty that the police were entering into a first aid treatment area, and that someone was receiving medical attention there. MelbSMC medic CJ Wallace said:
“We heard the crowd screaming and yelling as they made a line to protect us from being trampled because we could not move. I could see medics yelling to the police not to attack as there were people on the ground.
“I heard people shouting ‘first aid space’, ‘medics are here’ and ‘people injured on the ground with medics’. But the police sprayed the crowd before directly spraying myself, my fellow medic and our injured casualty when we were all huddled on the ground.”
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x12wNRiOZ6E">In footage published by media outlet RT</a>, medics and the crowd can clearly be heard telling police that they are in a first aid area, and not to enter. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ReclaimWhatNet3/videos/1039822036028784/">Other footage</a>*, shot from a short distance away, shows that Victoria Police deployed several bursts of OC spray against the crowd – the largest of which was directed towards the circle of protesters protecting the medics and their casualty. The large cloud of OC spray vapour in the air is estimated to have affected around 100 people.
When OC spray was introduced for police use in Australia it was intended as a “less-lethal” alternative to deadly force, and was supposed to be used only when a senior officer determined their life was in immediate danger.
We allege that the use of chemical weapons against a crowd of protesters is unwarranted and unlawful, and was used indiscriminately against medical personnel and casualties who did not pose a threat to officers' safety.
Melbourne Street Medic Collective condemns Victoria Police's use of chemical weapons against protesters, especially to facilitate a rally organised by overt fascists and neo-Nazis.
Melbourne Street Medic Collective calls for the officers in command of PORT and of the event to immediately be suspended from their duties and investigations launched into how and why chemical weapons came to be used, and used against medics, injured persons and in treatment spaces.
These investigations should be conducted with the possibility of demotion, termination from employment and/or laying of criminal charges (such as for assault) as outcomes.
Melbourne Street Medic Collective encourages all witnesses and concerned persons to lodge complaints with Victoria Police’s Conduct Unit and the Police Minister.
[* Police are seen deploying OC spray between 1:26 and 1:40; the large plume of OC spray vapour used against medical personnel appears at 1:33.]
Media Contacts:
Amanda Zivcic – 0423 013 245
Melbourne Activist Legal Service <a href="http://melbourneactivistlegalsupport.org/2015/07/19/public-statement-reclaim-australia-counter-rallies/">has released a public statement on this issue</a>. 
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The Melbourne Street Medic Collective is currently fundraising to resupply kits that were used treating protesters at the counter-rally. Contributions can be made <a href="https://ozcrowd.com/campaigns/melbournes-radical-first-aid-group-needs-your-help-support-the-melbourne-street-medic-collective/#.VazJvvmqqko">here</a>.

Melbourne Street Medics Collective

Medics doused with pepper spray while treating casualties

The following statement was issued on 18 July by the <a href="http://melbsmc.org/">Melbourne Street Medics</a>, a collective of first aid and medical professionals who provide Victoria’s activist community with free and high quality first aid.
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Today, antifascist protesters converged upon Spring Street in Melbourne near the Parliament of Victoria. They went there to counter racist rallies being held by Reclaim Australia and the fascist United Patriots Front.
As usual Victoria Police was also in attendance, and in the days leading to the protest it had promised a large presence and random weapons checks in response to rumours of fascists bringing weapons and intending violence.
Victoria Police’s goal for the day was to facilitate Reclaim Australia and the United Patriots Front holding their rallies out the front of Parliament House. In order to achieve this mounted officers and members of the Public Order Response Team (PORT) complemented uniformed officers on the streets, and OC (Pepper) spray was deployed against counter-protesters.
Amongst those affected by the OC Spray was a casualty who began to experience respiratory distress, a not uncommon side-effect of OC spray and other such “less-than-lethal” chemical weapons. In the course of attending to this casualty and decontaminating others who had been affected, members of the Melbourne Street Medic Collective (including one pregnant woman) were attacked by police with OC Spray and kettled in a small space at the top of Little Bourke Street.
Footage of the incident will be reviewed as it becomes available but at this point there seem to be only two explanations for the deployment of chemical weapons against the Street Medics: some witness reports have indicated that Victoria Police officers were spraying the crowd indiscriminately and did not check who they were attacking until after the fact. Others have said that police ignored the shouts of the crowd advising them that someone was receiving medical attention and with the decision to spray all medics this action should be seen as a deliberate attack upon medical personnel and their treatment space.
As one of our medics has since remarked:
“Possibly more than 100 people needed to be treated today as police indiscriminately fired pepper spray into the crowd, including onto an injured man who was struggling to breathe, was losing consciousness, and was awaiting an ambulance. They also sprayed the medics treating him. Someone had a seizure, two were taken to hospital and a few were sent home (by us as medics) due to the after-effects of the pepper spray (namely hypothermia-like symptoms of shaking and an inability to normalise body temperature). It was absolute fucking carnage and it was completely unnecessary and provocative. The racists didn’t cop any of the pepper spray at all as far as I know, and they got a three-line police escort away from the area.”
Victoria Police should rightfully be condemned for the deployment of chemical weapons, the targeting of medical personnel, casualties and medical treatment spaces with such weapons and, most of all, doing this in order to facilitate a public rally of racists and overt fascists and neo-nazis. Any assessment of the actions of antifascist protesters will conclude that they were inherently defensive: against threats of violence and the use of weapons by fascists and nazis as part of the United Patriots Front, and against the violence of racism and systematic oppression on the parts of Reclaim Australia, the United Patriots Front and Victoria Police.
The officers in command of PORT and of the event should immediately be suspended from their duties and investigations launched into how and why chemical weapons came to be used, and used against medics, injured persons and in treatment spaces. These investigations should be conducted with the possibility of demotion, termination from employment and/or laying of criminal charges (such as for assault) as outcomes.
Melbourne Street Medic Collective encourages all witnesses and concerned persons to lodge complaints with Victoria Police’s Conduct Unit and the Police Minister.
Police Conduct Unit 
	GPO Box 913 
	Melbourne VIC 3001
Telephone:1300 363 101 
	Email: <a href="mailto:PSC-POLICECONDUCTUNITCOMPLAINTSANDCOMPLIMENTS@police.vic.gov.au">PSC-POLICECONDUCTUNITCOMPLAINTSANDCOMPLIMENTS@police.vic.gov.au</a>

Medics doused with pepper spray while treating casualties

Police use of pepper spray at Melbourne anti-fascist rally condemned

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