Leader of Nevada Nuclear-Test Protests Quitting After 2 1/2 Years

Peace activist Jessie Cocks, one of the leaders in the anti-nuclear movement, says she’s decided to retire from the American Peace Test--the group she helped found 2 1/2 years ago.

“I’ve come to realize my role is important to the movement, as is everyone’s,” Cocks said. “I’m not indispensable.” Cocks, 38, has led most of the major protests at the Nevada Test Site since 1985.

During her tenure as a protest organizer here, 5,815 trespassing arrests have been made at the desert testing site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Those arrests account for almost all of the 6,079 arrests that anti-nuclear activists say have been recorded at the desert site since protests began there in 1957.

She came to Nevada from Pennsylvania in August of 1985 to join a protest marking the 40th anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. “I came expecting to watch, but I got completely taken by the experience,” Cocks said.

Nye County Sheriff’s Capt. Jim Merlino and his deputies have arrested Cocks eight times at the test site. “We feel a little differently about testing but we always knew we had to get along,” Merlino said of her. She would meet with Merlino before every protest to give him crowd estimates and schedules.

“We’re going to miss her a lot,” Merlino said. “She never shortchanged me. She’s always been up front. We’ve become friends and I like that.”