Patriot Prayer leader ends up at Crissy Field after all

Joey Gibson makes a statement at Crissy Field following the cancellation of the Patriot Prayer event on Saturday, Aug. 26, 2017, in San Francisco, Calif. Joey Gibson makes a statement at Crissy Field following the cancellation of the Patriot Prayer event on Saturday, Aug. 26, 2017, in San Francisco, Calif. Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Patriot Prayer leader ends up at Crissy Field after all 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

It was a “crazy day” for Joey Gibson — one that ended with the Patriot Prayer leader showing up at the spot in the Presidio where he had once scheduled a rally for the right-wing group.

Gibson called off that event the day before it was to have been held Saturday, saying he would hold a news conference in Alamo Square Park instead. When police closed the park, Gibson hit the road, first to an online chat with friends, then to a press conference in Pacifica and finally to Crissy Field.

There, he joined about 20 would-be rally participants, some of whom said they had come from Oregon and Washington to attend the aborted rally.

They did not march, but mostly stood under the shade of a large tree in the middle of the field. The group said they had have been mislabeled as racists and white supremacists and that they were standing up for free speech.

“It seems like if you’re conservative in California, you’re deemed as a racist,” said Patrick Porcuna, a 28-year-old San Francisco resident, who identifies as libertarian and said he had voted for President Trump. “I’m down for people to talk and have free speech.”

The group was confronted by counter-protesters, some of whom chanted, “Black lives matter.”

“I’m having to go from spot to spot because antifa really wants to come after me,” Gibson said, referring to militant leftists who have confronted right-wing demonstrators at some rallies.

He left after about an hour, leaving the field to small knots of supporters and opponents.

Earlier Saturday, Gibson complained that the city had made it all but impossible for him to put on an event in public.

“Today has been a crazy day,” he said on a Facebook Live broadcast. “Everywhere we go, the police, the city, they want to shut it down.”

Gibson was forced to cancel his Alamo Square press conference when police closed the park Saturday morning and put up a fence around it.

He said officials such as Mayor Ed Lee and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco had wrongly labeled his group white supremacists while ignoring what he called the threat to public safety from counterprotesters such as those who massed outside Alamo Square on Saturday.

Officials countered that it was Gibson who had threatened public safety by pulling a last-minute location switch, to a spot where he had no permit for a rally.

Hamed Aleaziz and Catherine Ho are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: haleaziz@sfchronicle.com, cho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @haleaziz, @Cat_Ho