Demonstrators clash during a free speech rally Sunday, Aug. 27, 2017, in Berkeley, Calif. Several thousand people converged in Berkeley Sunday for a "Rally Against Hate" in response to a planned right-wing... (Associated Press) 
 
 BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) — An anti-hate rally was disrupted when scores of anarchists wearing black clothing and masks stormed the demonstration in Berkeley and attacked several supporters of President Donald Trump. But police were able to head off any wider violence. 
 
 Thousands gathered Sunday in response to a planned anti-Marxism protest that was canceled amid concerns demonstrators might be attacked. The counter-demonstration was largely peaceful for several hours until the antifa, or anti-fascists, overran police barricades around the protest area. The violence was swift but brief, and among those targeted was Joey Gibson, leader of the right-wing organization Patriot Prayer that had called off a demonstration a day earlier in San Francisco. 
 
 Berkeley Police Chief Andrew Greenwood said officers were told not to actively confront the anarchists. He applauded officers' restraint, saying it forestalled greater violence. Six people suffered injuries, including two who were hospitalized, and one officer was injured while making an arrest and several others were hit with paint. 
 
 There were 13 arrests on various charges including, assault with a deadly weapon. 
 
 "The potential use of force became very problematic" given the thousands of peaceful protesters in the park, Greenwood said. Once anarchists arrived, it was clear there would not be dueling protests between left and right so he ordered his officers out of the park and allowed the anarchists to march in. 
 
 There was "no need for a confrontation over a grass patch," Greenwood said. 
 
 Several hours later, the demonstration broke up without any further incidents. 
 
 Officials in Berkeley and San Francisco had been girding for the possibility of violent clashes at right-wing demonstrations. But Saturday's in San Francisco by Patriot Prayer was called off, and police blocked access to a public square where Gibson had planned to hold a news conference. He instead held it outside the city and criticized police for not doing enough to ensure supporters' safety at the originally scheduled location of Crissy Field. 
 
 Still hundreds of counter-protesters marched through the city. San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said Saturday that police made a single arrest for public intoxication during demonstrations organized by left-wing groups. 
 
 The anti-Marxist rally in Berkeley was organized by Amber Cummings, a transsexual supporter of Trump. Citing the potential for violence, she canceled the event but said she would show up on her own. She was not seen there, though Gibson vowed to come and when he did anarchists set upon him. 
 
 They pepper-sprayed him and chased him as he backed away with his hands held in the air. Gibson rushed behind a line of police wearing riot gear, who set off a smoke bomb to drive away the attackers. 
 
 Separately, groups of hooded, black-clad protesters attacked at least four other men in or near the park, kicking and punching them until the assaults were stopped by police. The assaults were witnessed by an Associated Press reporter. 
 
 At one point, an anti-rally protester denounced a Latino man holding a "God Bless Donald Trump" sign. 
 
 "You are an immigrant," Karla Fonseca said. "You should be ashamed of yourself." 
 
 Several other people also yelled at the man, who said he was born in Mexico but supports Trump's proposal to build a wall along the border. 
 
 Groups that planned the counter-demonstrations were concerned that white nationalists might show up and there would violence like the kind two weeks in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a woman was killed. No white nationalists showed up, and only a handful of pro-Trump demonstrators were visible in the crowd. 
 
 Police pulled one supporter of Trump out of the park over a wall by his shirt as a crowd of about two dozen counter-demonstrators surrounded him and chanted "Nazi go home!" and pushed him toward the edge of the park. At least two people were detained by officers for wearing bandannas covering their faces. 
 
 Anti-rally protesters chanted slogans "No Trump. No KKK. No fascist USA" and carried signs that said: "Berkeley Stands United Against Hate." 
 
 In the days leading up to the planned events Cummings and Gibson, who is Japanese-American, consistently denounced racism. In a video he posted on Patriot Prayer's Facebook page, Gibson said he is a person of color and so if he was in favor of white nationalism "I'd have to punch myself in the face." 
 
 Gibson said Saturday that he was planning to organize a rally Sept. 10 in Portland, Oregon. 
 
 Meantime, newly appointed University of California, Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ said the campus was "working very hard on the security arrangements" for the Sept. 14 appearance of conservative commentator Ben Shapiro. 
 
 Campus officials will add more police to the event than were present for the scheduled appearance of another conservative, Milo Yiannopoulos, Christ said. That planned talk was canceled when demonstrations turned violent in February. 
 
 Student activism was born during the 1960s free-speech movement at Berkeley, when thousands of students at the university mobilized to demand that the school drop its ban on political activism. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writers Terry Chea and Marcio Sanchez in Berkeley contributed to this report. ||||| It took a while, but Democrats may finally have had enough of the antifa. 
 
 In a Tuesday statement, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called out by name the antifa, or “anti-fascists,” for the first time since Sunday’s leftist violence in Berkeley. 
 
 “Our democracy has no room for inciting violence or endangering the public, no matter the ideology of those who commit such acts,” the California Democrat said in a statement. “The violent actions of people calling themselves antifa in Berkeley this weekend deserve unequivocal condemnation, and the perpetrators should be arrested and prosecuted.” 
 
 More than 100 antifa members, many wearing black clothing and masks, jumped police barriers Sunday at a Berkeley protest, chasing down and attacking a small number of Trump supporters, resulting in six injuries and 13 arrests. 
 
 Mrs. Pelosi initially made no public comment, followed by a statement to the Washington Times from a spokesman saying that she “has always emphasized the importance of ‘peaceful’ in the right to peaceful protest” without mentioning the antifa. 
 
 “In California, as across all of our great nation, we have deep reverence for the Constitutional right to peaceful dissent and free speech,” Mrs. Pelosi said in Tuesday’s statement. “Non-violence is fundamental to that right. Let us use this sad event to reaffirm that we must never fight hate with hate, and to remember the values of peace, openness and justice that represent the best of America.” 
 
 The antifa has come under increasing criticism for its efforts to shut down “fascists,” which sometimes means supporters of President Trump, from speaking at rallies such as the Berkeley No to Marxism in America event, which was actually canceled beforehand over fears of violence. 
 
 Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin, a Democrat, told reporters afterward that he thought it was time to “classify them as a gang,” referring to the antifa. 
 
 “They come dressed in uniforms. They have weapons, almost like a militia, and I think we need to think about that in terms of our law enforcement approach,” Mr. Arreguin told CBS5 in San Francisco. 
 
 Patriot Prayer’s Joey Gibson, a frequent target of the antifa, had urged California Democrats to denounce leftist violence after he canceled his Freedom Rally scheduled for Saturday in San Francisco over public-safety concerns. 
 
 Prior to the event, Mrs. Pelosi had described his event as a “white supremacist rally,” even though Mr. Gibson is half-Asian and had scheduled a slate of mostly non-white speakers. 
 
 “I’m asking Mayor [Ed] Lee and I’m asking Nancy Pelosi to speak against this violence and speak against this hatred, and be consistent with your message,” said Mr. Gibson at a Saturday press conference. 
 
 The antifa declared victory after the melee, proclaiming in a Sunday post on the website It’s Going Down that, “Black Bloc Pushes Out Alt-Right, Reclaims Park.” 
 
 Those affiliated with the shadowy, secretive group have defended its violent tactics, including the use of baseball bats and other weapons, as a form of “self-defense” against fascism. 
 
 Antifa members have been blamed for the Feb. 1 rioting in Berkeley over the right’s Milo Yiannopoulos, whose speech was ultimately canceled, which caused an estimated $100,000 in property damage. 
 
 
 
 
 
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– Sunday's violence in Berkeley has brought renewed attention to the "antifa" movement, general shorthand for groups of black-clad "anti-fascist" protesters who show up at rallies to confront far-right protesters. In his post-Charlottesville remarks, President Trump blamed the antifa movement for contributing to the violence, and Sunday's confrontation "marked another street brawl between opposing ends of the political spectrum—violence that has become a regular feature of the Trump years and gives signs of spiraling upward," per the Washington Post. So just what is antifa? In a New York Times op-ed, Columbia professor Todd Gitlin offers some insights, describing antifa as the "backlash to the backlash, a defensive response to the growing presence of right-wing extremism." Given antifa members' willingness to use violence, he sees cause for concern. "They do not advocate a positive doctrine, racial or otherwise," writes Gitlin of antifa adherents. "Some supporters consider themselves (as Mr. Trump accurately said) anarchists, some Marxists of different stripes." No national organization exists, and groups (usually all men) spring up locally. Antifa groups typically are unarmed, but Gitlin sees the potential for that to change as confrontations with right-wing groups escalate. "If effectively contained and self-contained, many of its supporters would likely return to the kind of nonviolent left-wing, anti-racist organizing that they were involved in before Mr. Trump rejuvenated the nationalist right with fire and fury," writes Gitlin. But that's not likely in the near future, he adds. "More Charlottesvilles, or worse, may be coming." Click for the full column.