Live coverage: Violence at Berkeley rally escalates, police make arrests

Here’s the latest coverage from Berkeley, where hundreds of demonstrators converged at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park: to oppose a far-right demonstration planned there.

7:22 p.m. Police update: Berkeley police spokeswoman Jennifer Coats said 13 people have been arrested — an update from the 14 figure she had given earlier. One of those arrests was on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. Most of the others were for carrying banned items, such as makeshift weapons. Coats also said that six people reported injuries, non life-threatening. She said 400 law enforcement officers from Berkeley, Oakland, UC Berkeley and Alameda County worked on crowd control. “We tried to make sure things stayed peaceful,” she said. “We try new and different strategies. Some work and some don’t. We’re learning.”

3:30 p.m. Protests calm, violence subsides: A massive crowd of people — some “Antifa,” some counter-protesters and some “Black Lives Matter” groups — has disbanded at Ohlone Park.

Residents and neighbors said they felt relieved that Berkeley buildings and businesses were not vandalized the way they were earlier this year following a protest at UC Berkeley. While there were skirmishes, and one news media worker was chased, the masked group that has incited violence in the past was much tamer.

An anarchist holds a smoke bomb after the police retreat during a protest at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center park in Berkeley, Calif., on Sunday, August 27th, 2017. An anarchist holds a smoke bomb after the police retreat during a protest at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center park in Berkeley, Calif., on Sunday, August 27th, 2017. Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 83 Caption Close Live coverage: Violence at Berkeley rally escalates, police make arrests 1 / 83 Back to Gallery

“They made me nervous of police overreaction,” Connor O’Brien of Emeryville said. The 46-year-old marched with the group from Civic Center Park, where they knocked down police barricades and essentially overtook the space, to Ohlone Park.

“Officers were initially overactive in the park,” he said. “I feel like more often than not, their presence provokes violence. There were some scuffles, but 99 percent came out to peacefully protest. Their message was heard loud and clear.”

3:06 p.m. Arrests rise to 14: Berkeley police spokeswoman Jennifer Coats said 14 people have been arrested, mostly for bringing banned items into the rally zone. She said one person was injured in a fight but she was unsure of the extent of their injuries and whether they were taken to a hospital.

3:03 p.m. Joey Gibson “rescued”: Police officials said the detaining of Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson was actually a “rescue.” Gibson was placed in handcuffs after being chased, hit and pepper-sprayed by a mob of black-clad demonstrators. He was not arrested or charged.

2:30 p.m. Peaceful demonstrators leave violent rally: Hundreds of peaceful demonstrators are leaving the Civic Center Park area to return to Ohlone Park after far-left demonstrators overtook Sunday’s rally and it erupted into violence.

Traffic was backed up around Berkeley as mobs of people took to city streets.

The scene at Ohlone Park had been peaceful and celebratory compared with the scene at Civic Center, where police threw smoke bombs into the crowd after hundreds of black-clad demonstrators took over.

2 p.m. Violence escalates, 10 people arrested: A protest grew increasingly violent as groups of demonstrators exchanged blows, deployed pepper spray and mobbed right-wing demonstrators around the park.

Police have arrested 10 people for “a number of violations,” officials said.

Riot police became visibly outnumbered and overwhelmed in their attempt to control the ever-unruly crowds.

1:50 p.m. Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson detained: The leader of Patriot Prayer, a right-wing group that organized a rally Saturday in San Francisco, was handcuffed and detained after being chased amid an increasingly violent protest in Berkeley. Before he was detained, he was pepper-sprayed and chased by a mob on demonstrators who took swings at him.

1:40 p.m. Protest in chaos: The scene at Civic Center Park erupted in chaos, and hundreds of black-clad demonstrators ran from the park screaming in various directions down city streets. Moments before, they had jumped barriers and entered the police-guarded park..

Police clearly became overwhelmed by the masses of black-clad protesters and allowed them to enter the park.

“Whose park? Our park!” the leftist counterprotesters chanted amid a billowing blue cloud from nearby smokebombs inside the park.

1:35 p.m. Hundreds break through: Berkeley police in riot gear stepped aside as hundreds of counterprotesters jumped the barriers around Civic Center park and flooded the place. All very peaceful. One protester said that was “too easy.” Fighting broke out and pepper-spray and tear gas filled the air as hundreds of men and women clad in black moved through the park.

1:20 p.m. Tensions rising: Far-left demonstrators wearing black masks and body armor have joined the crowds gathered at Civic Center Park.

Tensions at the park have been on the rise as police in riot gear abandoned their post along a concrete barricade within the park separating the right-wing demonstrators and the counter protesters.

Police are now surrounding the perimeter of the park to deal with masses of counterprotesters who are trying to get in.

1:11 p.m. Counterprotest crowd swells: Several hundred counterprotesters that left their rally at Ohlone Park have gathered just outside Civic Center Park. Berkeley police estimated the crowd at and around Civic Center Park at about 4,000 people, with most of those being people who showed up to oppose a right-wing rally.

“The sea does not discriminate,” someone wrote on a surfboard.

“Keep your country safe and clean,” read another sign showing a stick figure throwing a swastika in a trash can.

Several people played he drums, and some shouted “No Nazis here.”

12:50 p.m. Hundreds headed to Civic Center Park: Hundreds of demonstrators who had gathered at Ohlone Park in Berkeley are now marching to Civil Center Park. The group stretches three blocks.

12:04 p.m. First physical altercation: Two men briefly exchanged blows and were quickly swept up by officers inside Civic Center Park. One man was a counterprotester and the other was part of the smaller — but more vocal — group of right-wing demonstrators. Police had no tolerance for any skirmishes and were quick to swoop in and evict any perceived agitators from the park.

As the conflicts continued, Theo Shear of Oakland held up one end of a white bed sheet painted with the phrase “Resist like its 1933.”

The 25-year-old’s grandparents lived in Nazi Germany and didn’t do anything to protest Hitler’s rise to power, he said. He came with his brother-in-law, Jesse Simons, to demonstrate against the group, which he equated with recent white-supremacist rallies around the country.

“You have to live and learn,” he said. “I wouldn’t be comfortable having Nazis in my hometown. A lot of people here are angry. There are so many feelings and it is hard to know what to do. You don’t want to promote violence but you have to show you are against intolerance.”

11:47 a.m. Demonstrators detained, booted: Police at Civic Center Park detained at least two people wearing masks and removed them from the park. A couple hundred people — the vast majority anti-hate demonstrators have filled the park. Many of the anti-hate group choked the entrances to the park, as they waited to get by security checkpoints. Police searched every backpack and bag for contraband items, like knives, sticks, masks, water bottles and mace.

Near the square’s fountain, a man in a red “Make America Great Again” hat held up a poster with Trump’s face printed on it. A counter-protester pantomimed punching the photo in the face.

“No Trump, no KKK, no racist USA,” counter demonstrators chanted.

Someone blared a kazoo. A dozen police officers stood in the nucleus of the cluster waiting to pull any troublemakers out.

Nearby, Marie Kalb of Oakland sat on the fountain watching the action. She raised a sign over her head decrying hate.

“When people start marching in the street with actual swastikas and the president can’t be bothered to condemn them without a teleprompter, that’s a line for me,” she said. “It’s not enough to sit at home and eat sheet cake. You have to come out.”

11:32 a.m. No-hate rally: Hundreds of mostly local residents have converged at Ohlone Park in Berkeley to oppose hate speech, racism and white supremacy. Many are carrying signs reading “Berkeley stands united against hate,” “Queers against hate” and “End white supremacy.” Others are handing out “no hate” shields.

Jeff Conant, 50, of Berkeley, who was with the group that helped organize the anti-hate rally, said: “It’s important for people to show up and make it unacceptable for right-wing white supremacists to spew hate and incite violence.” The group behind the rally is called Showing Up For Racial Justice.

10:54 a.m. Shouting matches: A handful of right-wing demonstrators and nearly two dozen counter-protesters have begun squaring off in one-on-one verbal confrontations.

Police broke up a heated verbal altercation between a man wearing a red “Make America Great Again” and another man who was in his face. The two men were surrounded by members of the media and citizens recording the spat on cameras and smart phones.

Arthur Schaller of Torrance (Los Angeles County) stood in the fray with a white Trump flag around his shoulders. He handed out businesses cards printed with the American flag.

“This is a movement bigger than Joey Gibson,” he said, referencing the organizer behind a planned rally the day before in San Francisco. “This state is a beautiful state. We just have bad people running it. We need to expose that hatred in the left. All I want is for liberals and Trump supporters to show up and talk today.”

Nearby, a group gathered in front of the post office with signs.

“Free speech does not equal hate speech,” one sign said.

“Trump must resign,” another read.

From across the street, residents working out at the YMCA ogled out its windows at the crowd.

10:30 a.m. ‘Not a Klansman’: Jordan Davis, 25, was one of the first in the park. He walked around wearing a blue Trump flag draped around his shoulders. The Bay Area native, who declined to say which city he’s from, said he wasn’t expecting violence but that it was a “risk you have to be willing to take to attend these rallies.”

“What’s more important is to dispel the myth that it’s all KKK here,” he said. “Obviously I am not a Klansman. They’re trying to lump Trump supporters in with a group that is pretty much nonexistent. We are hopeful for an open, obvious dialogue.”

Davis posed for a few photos with various news crews, who outnumbered the rally goers.

At one point, he looked around to make sure no one was watching and ripped down a “Bay Area Stands Against Hate” sign. He hung a “Blue Lives Matter” flag with the poster’s used tape, then ripped the anti-hatred sign into pieces, flinging it into confetti on the ground.

10:05 a.m. Police brace for trouble: Berkeley police officers in riot gear are searching bags and prepared to confiscate banned items of people filing into the park. Two people showed up wearing pro-Trump items. No counterprotesters appeared to be in the park. Some residents were there to see what was going on.

At least two police helicopters are circling overhead. White cement barricades line the perimeter of the park, and the streets surrounding City Hall are shut down.

On the sidewalks, residents have written messages like “Love trumps hate” and “Remember Heather” — referencing Heather Heyer, the young woman struck and killed by a driver during a counter-white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

A massive red sign has been strung between two trees in the middle of the park reading, “Bay Area stands against hate and white supremacy.”

7:50 a.m. Getting ready: Barricades are set up in Civic Center Park in preparation for demonstrations. But officials are hoping that whatever happens Sunday in Berkeley mirrors whatever happened — or largely didn’t happen — at a right-wing rally on Saturday in San Francisco.

Exactly who’s showing up for the “No to Marxism in America” rally isn’t known. The organizer said that she had called the event off, but that may or may not mean much.

Police are preparing for possible clashes and some building windows are boarded up.

The Berkeley event comes a day after thousands of counterprotesters peacefully took to the streets of San Francisco to defy a right-wing rally that failed to materialize.

At Civic Center Park in Berkeley, police with bomb-sniffing dogs were checking the grounds early Sunday while a counter-protest group hung a huge red sign that said “Bay Area Stands Against Hate and White Supremacy.”

Amber Cummings, the organizer of the Berkeley right-wing rally, announced Friday that she was asking supporters to stay away because the planned rally had “lost its meaning,” but that she would show up herself and “stand alone in the park.”

Joey Gibson, the organizer of the right-wing Patriot Prayer group that failed to muster much of a presence on Saturday in San Francisco, said he would be “dropping in an out of downtown Berkeley all day in hopes of talking to normal people.”

Counterprotesters said they would conduct a Rally Against Hate at 10:30 a.m. at the western entrance to the UC Berkeley campus, several blocks east of where the right-wing rally was scheduled.

Police in Berkeley, the home of the Free Speech Movement, said they would not allow participants at Civic Center Park to cover their faces and banned many items including baseball bats and skateboards.

San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer Michael Cabanatuan contributed to this report.