A crowd of counter-demonstrators estimated in the thousands showed up in Boston on Saturday to protest a controversial “free speech” event, scheduled a week after a white-nationalist rally in support of a Confederate monument in Charlottesville, Virginia, led to fatal violence, including the death of one woman.

The Boston rally concluded earlier than anticipated and was declared officially over by the Boston Police Department by 1:30 p.m. ET. President Trump tweeted at 3:22 p.m. that there appeared to be “many anti-police agitators” in the city, though later he said that he wanted “to applaud the many protesters in Boston who are speaking out against bigotry and hate.”

The city’s Democratic mayor, Marty Walsh, responded to another tweet from the president commending him and local law-enforcement officers by saying: “Today, Boston stood for peace and love, not bigotry and hate. We should work to bring people together, not apart.” Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey, also a Democrat, said on Twitter that he “couldn’t be more proud of” the city. “Peaceful, moral, resistant,” he tweeted. “That is our city and commonwealth.”

It’s not clear whether there was a direct connection between the organizers of the “free speech” event in Boston and the white-nationalist “Unite the Right” rally that took place in Charlottesville.