Right-Wing Bay Area Rallies Cancelled

UPDATE 5:28 p.m.: A second right-wing rally planned for the weekend in the San Francisco Bay Area has been canceled.

Organizer Andrea Cummings released a statement Friday afternoon urging people not to come to her "No to Marxism in America" rally in Berkeley on Sunday. She said she is concerned for the safety of the people who might come to the event.

The cancellation comes almost immediately after a similar rally planned for Saturday in San Francisco was called off.

The organizer of that rally, Joey Gibson, said earlier that he and his followers from the group Patriot Prayer would be going to the Berkeley rally instead. He also plans a news conference at a park for Saturday afternoon.

Counter-demonstrations were planned for both of the now-cancelled rallies, and city leaders worried violence would break out.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A right-wing group has canceled a "freedom rally" scheduled for Saturday in San Francisco that civic leaders had worried would turn violent.

Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson announced Friday that the group would instead hold a news conference at a San Francisco city park Saturday to explain what he called the failure of police and elected officials to keep the group safe.

He said the group would also join an unpermitted anti-Marxist rally across the bay in a Berkeley city park on Sunday that's hosted by a transsexual Trump supporter.

Mayors in both cities say the two groups invite hate.

Gibson said the rhetoric prompted the decision to replace the rally at Crissy Field with the news conference at Alamo Park.