FILE - In this April 29, 2017, file photo provided by John Rudoff, Jeremy Joseph Christian, right, attends a Patriot Prayer organized by a pro-Trump group in Portland, Ore. Christian, the man accused... (Associated Press) 
 
 PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Thousands of demonstrators and counter protesters converged in downtown Portland, Oregon, on Sunday, a day marked by multiple arrests and clashes between police and protesters. 
 
 A pro-President Donald Trump free speech rally drew several hundred to a plaza near City Hall more than a week after two Portland men were fatally stabbed trying to stop a man from shouting anti-Muslim insults at two teenage girls on a light-rail train. 
 
 That rally was met across the street by hundreds of counter-protesters organized by immigrant rights, religious and labor groups. They said they wanted to make a stand against hate and racism. 
 
 Portland police said Sunday evening that 14 people were arrested, and several dozen knives, bricks, sticks and other weapons were seized. 
 
 By late afternoon, police closed nearby Chapman Square where a separate group of protesters — many wearing masks and black clothing and identified as anti-fascists — also demonstrated. Police used flash-bang grenades and pepper balls to disperse that crowd after saying protesters were hurling bricks and other objects at officers. 
 
 The people gathered at the free speech rally organized by the conservative group Patriot Prayer and counter-protesters at City Hall were not involved in those clashes, police said. 
 
 After several dozen demonstrators began marching north of the initial rally locations, police officers moved in and blocked them. They detained a large crowd in the street, including several journalists. 
 
 People identified as participating in criminal activity would be arrested, police said. Everyone else was eventually released after officers took photographs of their identification. 
 
 Sunday's event was organized by the group Patriot Prayer and billed as Trump Free Speech Rally in "one of the most liberal areas of the West Coast." 
 
 Rally organizer Joey Gibson held a moment of silence for the two men who were stabbed to death and pleaded with the crowd to refrain from violence. He later told them that goal is to wake up the liberty movement. "It's OK to be a conservative in Portland," he said. 
 
 Last week Mayor Ted Wheeler unsuccessfully tried to have the permit for the free speech rally revoked, saying it could further enflame tensions following the May 26 stabbings. 
 
 The suspect in the light-rail stabbings, Jeremy Joseph Christian, 35, attended a similar rally in late April wearing an American flag around his neck and carrying a baseball bat. Police confiscated the bat, and he was then caught on camera clashing with counter-protesters. 
 
 In a video posted on Facebook, Gibson condemned Christian and acknowledged that some rallies have attracted "legitimate Nazis." He described Christian as "all crazy" and "not a good guy." 
 
 Matthew Eggiman, 19, who lives in Corvallis, said he showed up Sunday to oppose bigotry and racism. He worried that that hateful rhetoric would embolden others. But he also condemned protesters who show up hoping to provoke violence. 
 
 The Rev. Diane Dulin of the United Church of Christ said in a statement ahead of the day's events that any act of violence in the community should be met by non-violence. 
 
 "We build our hope and our stamina for justice by showing up," said Dulin, part of a coalition of groups that organized rally to oppose hate. 
 
 Authorities say that on May 26 Christian killed two men and injured another on the light-rail train when they tried to help after he verbally abused two young women, one wearing a hijab. Christian is charged with aggravated murder and other counts. 
 
 The concerns over the Portland rally come amid a wider debate in the U.S. about the First Amendment, often in liberal cities like Portland and Berkeley, California, and on college campuses, where violent protests between far-right and far-left protesters have derailed appearances by contentious figures. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press Writers Phuong Le in Seattle and Manuel Valdes in Portland contributed to this report. ||||| With a suspected white supremacist charged with murdering two men, an ‘alt-right’ organizer refuses to back down. Antifascists are vowing to oppose him 
 
 The racially charged double murder that shocked Portland, Oregon, has increased tensions in a city already prey to a marked increase in political street clashes this year. 
 
 'He will remain a hero': families and friends mourn victims of Portland stabbing Read more 
 
 Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, 23, and Rick Best, 53, were fatally stabbed on a city train after intervening when a suspected white supremacist began yelling “hate speech” at two women who police believe to be Muslim. Another man was injured. The accused, 35-year-old Jeremy Christian, is due to appear in court on Monday. 
 
 On Sunday, after a candlelit vigil and strong words from the city’s mayor the night before, “alt-right” organizers refused to back away from a planned “free speech rally” in downtown Portland on Sunday 4 June. In turn, self-described “anti-fascist” activists committed to opposing them. 
 
 Joey Gibson, a YouTube personality and self-described “libertarian” behind the Patriot Prayer group, organized a 29 April rally in the city at which Christian was filmed giving fascist salutes and yelling racial slurs, and where counter-protesters claim he approached them armed with a baseball bat. 
 
 Gibson, who is promoting the “free speech” event next Sunday, told the Guardian: “We are going to continue with our rally. There is no way that we will stop. It is even more important that we come out with a strong message of love.” 
 
 Gibson has organized rallies this year in Portland and just over the Columbia River in Vancouver, Washington, where he lives. Most have involved confrontational postures against antifascists, such as those made by Christian in footage from the 29 April event. Some have become violent. 
 
 Jeremy Christian has nothing to do with us. He’s not even a Trump supporter Joey Gibson, Patriot Prayer 
 
 Alongside racist and misogynist commentary, posts on Christian’s Facebook page expressed deep animus for “antifa” activists. Gibson, however, has denied any connection with Christian, and has posted video he says shows Christian being ejected from his rally because of his bizarre behavior. 
 
 “Jeremy Christian has nothing to do with us,” Gibson said. “He’s not even a Trump supporter. He showed up at our march out of nowhere. None of us knew who he was. None of us had ever seen him. Folks from antifa and liberals in Portland have used pictures of him at the rally, trying to paint the picture that we’re all white supremacists.” 
 
 Gibson said he was not racist: “I believe in God, and I believe God sees us all as equal. To say someone is lower than someone else because of the color of their skin is insane to me.” 
 
 Asked about his recent support for a protest against sharia law, he said: “I completely stand against sharia law because it goes against everything I believe in. Muslims are the biggest victims of sharia law. I believe in a woman’s right to be her own person. I also believe in LGBT rights, too.” 
 
 Asked about the “alt-right” label, which has been applied to a range of far-rightwing groups and individuals who have risen to national prominence, he said: “What is the ‘alt-right’? I don’t really know. I’m Joey Gibson. Even with Trump, I support him, but there are things I don’t agree with. We either go towards freedom, or we go towards tyranny.” 
 
 ‘He definitely marched with them’ 
 
 Pathway to extremism: what neo-Nazis and jihadis have in common Read more 
 
 Rose City Antifa is a long-standing antifascist group in Portland, a major organizer of opposition to Gibson’s rallies. A spokesman who gave only a first name, David, said Gibson’s disavowals of Christian rang hollow. 
 
 “He definitely marched with them,” he said. “When you have an event like this you can say, ‘These people are with us, these people aren’t with us,’ as much as you want. But these are the people who turned out to the event.” 
 
 The spokesman said Portland’s reputation as a liberal city masked long-term political realities. 
 
 “The sad, unfortunate fact is that Portland does have a long history of white supremacist activity,” he said, mentioning the 1988 murder of an Ethiopian immigrant, Mulugeta Seraw. “There have been white skinheads and militia groups centred on Portland. These people have never gone away, but recently they have been comfortable coming out and showing their true colours.” 
 
 The sad, unfortunate fact is that Portland does have a long history of white supremacist activity 'David', Rose City Antifa 
 
 The spokesman pointed to an article on the Rose City Antifa website which identified a number of white supremacists who attended the 29 April event. 
 
 “[Christian] may have been the most brazen and visible white supremacist, but he was certainly not the only one,” he said. “At previous rallies, we’ve seen KKK members, members of the group Identity Europa and other unaffiliated white supremacists. There was another person at the 29 April rally who had a swastika pin on their backpack who was allowed to stay. They simply made that person remove the pin.” 
 
 The spokesman said the presence of such people, and escalating violence at the rallies, undermined Gibson’s claim that his events were intended solely to promote free speech. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest An ‘antifa’ flier shows Jeremy Christian. Photograph: Jason Wilson/the Guardian 
 
 “It doesn’t matter what the purpose of a rally is,” he said, “it matters what happens at that rally. How do the organizers of that rally conduct themselves? Who comes to join that rally and what’s the effect of them coming together?” 
 
 Gibson said he expected a tough reception next Sunday. “There will be more hatred, opposition, anger,” he said. “Because here are people running around irresponsibly saying Jeremy Christian was part of our group.” 
 
 Antifascist leaders had come under pressure, he said, since the Department of Homeland Security described anti-Trump protests in the city involving “black bloc” anarchists as “domestic terrorist violence”. 
 
 “I guarantee right now, there is going to be at least one kid arrested in downtown Portland who gets arrested because he believed the lie,” Gibson said. 
 
 Rose City Antifa is in turn determined to organize a “popular turnout” next Sunday. At the candlelight vigil on Saturday evening, flyers co-sponsored by the group were circulated. 
 
 The group’s spokesman said: “The thing that they’re going to discover is that Portlanders are tired of this. They’re tired of this circus. They’re tired of the excuses [Gibson] gives for throwing these rallies. People are tired of seeing white supremacists together in their streets. 
 
 “I think there’s going to be a very large turnout indeed.” 
 
 If such predictions prove true, next Sunday could see a continuation of political confrontations in the city which started around one major national event: the election of President Donald Trump.
– An alt-right "free speech" rally went ahead in Portland, Ore. Sunday despite the mayor's objections—and was met with three separate counter-protests on three sides. Around 3,000 counter-protesters, including labor groups and black-clad antifascist activists, gathered while a few hundred people, many with pro-President Trump signs, converged on Terry D. Schrunk Plaza for the rally organized by the "Patriot Prayer" group, the Guardian reports. Alt-right celebrity Pat "Spartan" Washington told reporters that he was "willing to use violence to make sure my family is safe and my patriot family is safe." "God, I hate them," he said of the counter-protesters across the street. "I look over there and I just want to smash." A wall of police officers separated the protesters and counter-protesters, though there were isolated clashes and police made at least 14 arrests, CNN reports. Police ended up using pepper balls and flash-bang grenades to disperse anti-fascist protesters, reports the AP. Mayor Ted Wheeler had urged organizers to call off the pro-Trump rally after the fatal stabbing of two men on a train last month. The suspect, Jeremy Christian, had attended a similar rally in the city in April. At the free-speech rally, speakers distanced themselves from Christian and called the train victims heroes, the Oregonian reports. "Mayor Wheeler says I spit out hate speech," organizer Joey Gibson told the crowd. "We've got to prove them wrong."