Patriot Prayer organizer shifts plans again as SF closes Alamo Square
August 27, 2017 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-makes-hurried-plans-to-handle-right-wing-event-11969432.php
Updated 11:43 am, Saturday, August 26, 2017
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Latest updates in advance of a planned right-wing gathering in San Francisco on Saturday:
10:29 a.m.: Park closes: San Francisco police and park department rangers closed off Alamo Square Park. Rangers announced through bullhorns that all visitors must leave, and officers escorted people out of the park. Police wearing helmets and carrying zip-tie restraints fanned out in the park.
Earlier in the day, the city had put fencing on all four sides of Alamo Square.
It is now unclear where Patriot Prayer will gather.
Media: JW Player
Dozens of police officers and Recreation and Park Department rangers patrolled the park and surrounding streets while hundreds of people stood on sidewalks. Some were protesters who came there in anticipation of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer holding what it billed as a 2 p.m. press conference.
A group of protesters came dressed in costume while others held signs reading “No Hate” and “Black Lives Matter.” One individual banged on a drum while people danced nearby.
“If you don’t think fighting white supremacy is an emergency, you’re enabling it,” said Lola Marie, 31, who drove from San Jose Saturday morning to demonstrate against the far right agitators.
Patriot Prayer organizer Joey Gibson, who scheduled a rally for Crissy Field before canceling Friday, said his Alamo Square event was now off as well. He posted on Facebook a plan to hold an indoor news conference at an as-yet undisclosed location and then “pop up at random spots in the city” to talk to people. He did not elaborate.
9:34 a.m.: Shifting plans: The Patriot Prayer organizer who moved Saturday’s right-wing gathering from Crissy Field to Alamo Square Park says he’ll hold an “indoor” news conference now that the city has fenced off the Western Addition park.
“I will be doing an indoor news conference at 2 pm, then will pop up at random spots in the city to talk with any citizens of SF. Keep any eye on my Page,” Joey Gibson posted on Facebook. He did not offer more specifics.
Gibson also posted that he apologized to “everyone that spent money and plane tickets to come down here.” He told people to “stay tuned.”
Mayor Ed Lee said at a tree-planting ceremony at Balboa High School that he would not talk about the closure of the park or any security measures “because events keep changing.”
“I’m leaving all the tactics around keeping the city safe to the Police Department,” said Lee, adding he was headed to a meeting with police officials straight from the park. “Nobody trusts any of the announcements going out by the groups.”
The Rev. Amos Brown of Third Baptist Church, strolling the perimeter of the park, said closing it was the “sensible thing to do to contain evil.”
“People on the alt-right are hate mongers,” he said. “They’re perpetrators of ignorance.”
The square is across the street from the famed “Painted Ladies,” a row of elegantly decorated Victorian houses. One of the houses was adorned with a large banner that said, “Love Trumps Hate.”
9:20 a.m.: Park off-limits: San Francisco officials are closing Alamo Square Park to the public, a park ranger said, a move that would keep a right-wing group from following through with its plan to hold a press conference there.
City workers erected a Cyclone-style fence around the park early Saturday, and a Recreation and Park Department ranger said the park would be closed at 10 a.m.
8:30 a.m. Park closure: San Francisco police appeared to be limiting public access to Alamo Square Park, casting into doubt a right-wing group’s last-minute plans to hold a press conference at 2 p.m. in the Western Addition park.
Ramon Beltran, a police services aide at the department’s Northern Station, said Alamo Square would be closed to the public “for as long as deemed necessary.” However, it was unclear whether or when a closure would take effect. City workers erected a Cyclone-type fence around the park early Saturday, but some people were still being allowed to walk through.
City officials noted that organizers of the Patriot Prayer rally originally planned for Crissy Field had not obtained a permit for their press conference. Patriot Prayer’s Joey Gibson said the same speakers and bands that had been scheduled to appear at Crissy Field would also be at Alamo Square. The Crissy Field event had a permit from the National Park Service.
7:53 a.m. Getting ready: San Francisco officials scrambled to make plans for a rescheduled right-wing gathering Saturday at a Western Addition park, one day after organizers canceled a scheduled rally in the Presidio.
Workers were erecting a temporary Cyclone-type fence Saturday morning around Alamo Square Park, where members of the group Patriot Prayer said they planned to hold a 2 p.m. press conference. The group had secured a permit for rally Saturday afternoon at Crissy Field but scratched their plans Friday, complaining that officials had unfairly labeled them white supremacists and created dangerous conditions for the event.
Authorities had compiled a long list of banned items for the Crissy Field rally and erected a fence around the site, with plans to check attendees and counterprotesters who were massing for the event. The fence being erected Saturday around Alamo Square Park indicated that similar tight access was likely for Patriot Prayer’s rescheduled press conference.
Officials with the city’s emergency operations center said it would open at 9 a.m., two hours earlier than planned, in light of the rescheduled gathering.
Patriot Prayer has not obtained a permit for the event. The same speakers and bands that were going to appear at Crissy Field will be at Alamo Square Park, organizer Joey Gibson said in a Facebook Live broadcast Friday. That raised questions about whether the event would be a press conference in the traditional sense.
San Francisco officials said all police officers would be on duty Saturday. Mayor Ed Lee said in a tweet late Friday, “Public safety is always our top priority. We are prepared for contingencies and spontaneous events.”
There were no reports of anyone at either Crissy Field or Alamo Square early in the morning.
Both Lee and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, had criticized the original permit granted by the National Park Service for the Crissy Field event. Pelosi called it a “white supremacist rally.”
Organizers insisted the planned “freedom rally” had no racist overtones. Gibson noted that not all the scheduled speakers were white and that he identifies as Japanese American.
The San Francisco rally had been the first of two right-wing gatherings scheduled for the Bay Area this weekend. On Friday, one of the organizers of a “No to Marxism” rally in Berkeley said the scheduled Sunday event also had been canceled and urged people not to attend.
Berkeley officials and police said they still expect some form of event to be held in the city’s Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park.
Kurtis Alexander, Jenna Lyons and Hamed Aleaziz are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com, jlyons@sfchronicle.com, haleaziz@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @kurtisalexander @Jenna Journo @haleaziz
