Twining attended the event on Wednesday and was disturbed at what he heard from the white supremacists. He said he left quickly after they arrived and started chanting.

"They ruined a perfectly nice vigil where we recognized two people " Iryna [Zarustka] and Charlie " and prayed for them and sang Amazing Grace and had our own conversations about how much they meant to us," he said.

He and others have stressed the vast majority of those who attended the vigils were there simply to mourn.

Twining said he and his wife have been accosted in a restaurant and at the grocery store over his presence at the vigil and the incorrect assumption that he's supportive of white nationalists. There have been calls for him to resign and he's even received death threats that have warranted police protection, he said.