SAN FRANCISCO — In an interview broadcast live on Facebook, organizers of an aborted "Patriot Prayer" rally originally scheduled for Saturday afternoon here blamed the left for the violence in Charlottesville, Va., and elsewhere.

“What you’re seeing here is a perfect example of the systemic oppression people of right wing thought and ideology have faced within these liberal enclaves,” said Kyle Chapman.

Chapman had been jailed in Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, Calif. after he was accused of taking part in violent brawls during pro-Trump and alt-right rallies in Berkeley in May. He was released on bail of $135,000 Friday night, he said during the interview.

“The left has always been violent and oppressive and since Charlottesville that violence and oppression has been emboldened,” Chapman said.

During the May protest, Chapman was wearing a helmet and carrying a shield and was caught on camera hitting a counter protester over the head with a stick.

“I’ve also been banned from doing something so simple as carrying a stick or a flag pole or even mace. They’ve severely affected my ability to take part in this movement or even participate in rallies,” Chapman said.

While the Patriot Prayer group appeared online, thousands of people in San Francisco took part in multiple peaceful counter protest rallies, marches and activities against hate. Many of these merged into a large celebration at City Hall by mid-day that quickly took on a festival air with music and dancing. Other activities included a mass sand angel making at the city's Ocean Beach, a crowd that stood together to form a giant heart and a family-friendly "Cutest Lil Counter Protest” event in Golden Gate Park.

Joey Gibson, a realtor from Vancouver, Wash. who originally called for the protest in San Francisco, said during the interview that liberals won't disavow the violent hard-left groups that have come to be called Antifa, for anti-fascist. Politicians won’t speak out against them, he said.

“They’re using them as tools and they’re afraid to speak out against them because they don’t want the blowback,” he said. “You cannot allow these extremists run around unopposed. It’s ridiculous."

Chapman said the group was only trying to exercise its First Amendment rights.

“We are not going to stand down and allow you to systematically oppress us anymore. We’re going got defend ourselves and fight back,” he said.

The interview took place in what appeared to be a living room of a house with the front drapes closed. Gibson tweeted that it was broadcast from Pacific, a town about 15 miles south of San Francisco. The name of the person broadcasting the interview or asking questions was not given.

It came less than 24 hours after the group, Patriot Prayer, abruptly cancelled plans for a controversial "free speech" march and rally that it had received a permit from the National Park Service to hold in Chrissy Field near the Golden Gate Bridge.

In a text conversation with USA TODAY Friday, Gibson said he had cancelled the rally due to concerns over possible violence. Instead he said he would hold an indoor news conference and then "pop up" randomly around the city to talk with locals.

Gibson and rally supporters spoke briefly at several parks in San Francisco Saturday afternoon, with some videos being posted on YouTube. They complained that their group had been unfairly pegged as white supremicists.

At the end of the impromptu news conference, Patriot Prayer supporter Will Johnson, an African-American man who had earlier said that the group was not racist, said they needed to move.

“We’ve been told that antifa ISIS members are on their way here. So you might want to clear out unless you want to be here for that violence,” he said.

The city had called in all police officers to work Saturday in anticipation of possible violence. On Friday, city and National Park Department staff blocked off much of Chrissy Field and planned a massive security effort to keep protesters and counter protesters from clashing.

Later Gibson said that in lieu of the original rally he would instead hold an unauthorized news conference in the city's iconic Alamo Square Saturday. Early Saturday morning city workers erected a metal fence around Alamo Square park, barring all public access.

No permits were requested or issued for Alamo Square for the weekend, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said in a statement. The popular tourist attraction fronts onto a string of "painted lady" Victorian homes is sometimes called Postcard Row as it graces millions of postcards.

San Francisco police flooded the area to maintain calm at the park and in the surrounding neighborhoods. They were prepared for any contingencies and spontaneous events, Lee said.

San Francisco police spent the day scrambling to keep up with the changes in Patriot Prayer plans. The city had also been bracing for as many as 12 counterprotest events. These ranged from a march from the Castro district led by drag queens to a flotilla of paddle boarders off the shore of Chrissy Field to a family-friendly protest at Golden Gate Park's Hall of Flowers. Many took place despite the lack of a protest to counter.

A separate “No to Marxism” in Berkeley scheduled for Sunday event was canceled by its organizer Friday, who urged on her Facebook page that no one attend.

Officials nationally have been on high alert for possible violence at protests after one woman was killed and 19 people were injured when an Ohio man rammed his car into a crowd of counter protesters on August 12, after a Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va..

On August 19 thousands of counter protesters peacefully but loudly rallied against a small handful of conservative activists who held a “Free Speech Rally” in Boston.

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has said the now-cancelled Saturday event at Chrissy Field, which is under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, would bring white supremacists and neo-Nazis to the city.

Gibson was adamant he is not a white supremacist and that the group does not support white supremacy or neo-Nazis.

However some of the rallies he has previously organized in the Pacific Northwest have attracted white supremacists and other alt-right supporters. Some have ended in violent confrontations between demonstrators and counterprotesters.

A history of clashes

In April, clashes with counterprotesters resulted in eight arrests at a pro-Trump rally Gibson helped organize in Vancouver, Wash.

Gibson also organized a rally in June at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash. to protest the college’s decades-long “Day of Absence” event in which women or a minority group voluntarily boycott the school for a day to do self-education, while those left behind reflect on their importance to the community.

This year, students had asked that whites leave the campus. When a professor objected it set off a series of clashes.During the rally, one man was arrested and Gibson said his tired were slashed.

Earlier in the week, Gibson told USA TODAY he planned the San Francisco protest rally to discuss publicly what he feels are fundamental problems in the nation and to emphasize the value of and need for free speech and freedom.

“We purposely do this because we want protesters to show up so they can hear us. Hopefully some of these groups will consider just coming in to the rally and hear us out,” he said.