People's Community Medics

The People’s Community Medics (PCM) is a grassroots organization that teaches basic emergency first aid skills free of charge.We were founded in the summer of 2011 by Sharena Thomas and Lesley Phillips. As members of the Oscar Grant Committee we learned that the BART police refused to call an ambulance for 20 minutes for fatally wounded Oscar Grant, despite the passionate pleas for medical help from his friends who were detained at the Fruitvale station by the police. That experience as well as our knowledge that 911 calls often do not result in an ambulance arriving in a timely manner to Black, Brown and poor neighborhoods largely inspired us to teach our people basic emergency first aid so that we can help one another until an ambulance arrives.