Joey Gibson, head of the group based in Washington state, said he was also in Portland on Saturday night when supporters of President Donald Trump clashed with Black Lives Matter protesters in the streets of downtown. Gibson arrived at the scene of the shooting shortly after it happened and was briefly corralled in a nearby gas station by angry protesters.

"I can't say much right now. All I can do is verify that he was a good friend and a supporter of Patriot Prayer," Gibson said of the shooting victim in a text exchange with The Associated Press. He said he would make a fuller statement later Sunday.

Police issued a plea for videos, photos or eyewitness accounts of the killing late Saturday night, which happened about 15 minutes after a caravan of about 600 vehicles that were part of a pro-Trump rally left downtown.