The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
San Francisco police are barring all public access to Alamo Square Park, a police employee said, casting into doubt a right-wing group’s last-minute plans to hold a press conference at 2 p.m. in the Western Addition park.
Alamo Square will be closed to the public “for as long as deemed necessary,” said Ramon Beltran, a police services aide at the department’s Northern Station. City workers erected a Cyclone-type fence around the park early Saturday.
Patriot Prayer has not obtained a permit for the event. The same speakers and bands that were going to appear at Crissy Field will be at Alamo Square Park, organizer Joey Gibson said in a Facebook Live broadcast Friday. That raised questions about whether the event would be a press conference in the traditional sense.
From a separate Chronicle report:
The group San Francisco Against Hate said in a Facebook post that protesters would gather at 11 a.m. at Steiner and Hayes streets, at the southeast corner of the park. “Our goal is to shut down white supremacy and show the real power of San Francisco,” the post said.
Organizers of another counterprotest, Flowers Against Fascism, said in a Facebook post that they would gather at noon at Frederick Douglass Plaza at Pierce and Fell streets, a block south of Alamo Square.
The group originally planned to distribute flowers at a Patriot Prayer rally when it was planned for Crissy Field, and said that now that the right-wing event has been rescheduled as a press conference in the Western Addition park, “it is more important than ever for our Flower Children to remain peaceful.”
San Francisco has fenced off Alamo square ahead of the last minute changed location of “patriot prayer” news conference/rally. pic.twitter.com/cVTLzzhUaE
— hadsrobinson (@hadsrobinson) August 26, 2017
Barricades, signs up at Alamo Square where Patriot Prayer gathering planned for 2 pm (?: Scott Shafer/KQED) Story: https://t.co/yxkt7Q0lYB pic.twitter.com/xbqG5HSlMc
— KQED (@KQED) August 26, 2017
#breaking #sfpolice say #alamosquare will be shut down today. Unclear what that means for the planned #patriot prayer news conference #ktvu pic.twitter.com/FOPioJp7ao
— Claudine Wong (@ClaudineKTVU) August 26, 2017
Alamo Square has not altered
“Loved Up Mobile Dance Rally”
12 noon Dolores Park & march to join Civic Center rallyhttps://t.co/hKF7iCOUfn pic.twitter.com/Dc6vJwvaPZ— unpaid protester ? (@DotDillon2) August 26, 2017