SAN FRANCISCO — Just days after a woman was killed in a clash between white nationalists and counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Virginia., authorities in San Francisco and Berkeley are gearing up for potentially volatile right-wing rallies of their own.
A group known as Patriot Prayer has received verbal approval for a First Amendment permit to gather Aug. 26 at Crissy Field in San Francisco, said National Park Service spokeswoman Sonja Hanson.
Permits are required for gatherings of more than 25 people.
While the National Park Service does not regulate the content of First Amendment activities, “we have to ensure that they are safe and peaceful,” Hanson said. “And if that changes, the event will be terminated.”
A “No to Marxism in America” rally also is planned the following day at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park in Berkeley. The event is being billed as a chance to “speak out and expose the plan of purging our nation from a free nation to a communist nation.”
At the park in April, 20 people were arrested and 11 were injured after fighting broke out between groups for and opposed to President Donald Trump.
Counter protests are being organized in response to the upcoming rallies in San Francisco and Berkeley.
Based in Portland, Oregon, Patriot Prayer is an “alt-right” group specializing “in rallies aimed at provoking far-left and anarchist groups,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups. Violence has been documented at other events organized by the group.
The leader of Patriot Prayer, Joey Gibson, has publicly disavowed the attack Saturday in Charlottesville that left counterprotester Heather Heyer dead and 19 others injured. Heyer, 32, was killed when a Dodge Challenger allegedly driven by James Alex Fields Jr., 20, plowed into a crowd.
Two Virginia state troopers — H. Jay Cullen and Berke M. M. Bates — also died when the helicopter they were using to monitor the demonstrations plummeted to the ground and burst into flames.
