Torontonians gathered outside the U.S. consulate downtown this morning to stand in solidarity with the residents of Charlottesville, Virginia.

At around 8 a.m., members of the public started to congregate outside the consulate, located on University Avenue, to protest the violence that occurred in Charlottesville over the weekend.

A 32-year-old woman was killed after a car slammed into a crowd of people who were protesting a white supremacist rally in the U.S. city on Saturday.

James Alex Fields Jr., a 20-year-old Ohio man, has now been charged with second-degree murder in connection with the incident.

Jesse Blue Forrest, who was born and raised in Charlottesville, was among the Toronto residents who attended this morning’s rally.

“Charlottesville was the very first city in North American by proclamation declared as a peace city and we for a long time have worked on having that city as a peace city and seeing what has happened now, the cancer that is in the United States, it’s just not Charlottesville.” he told CP24 Monday.

“I really pray that that cancer that’s down there doesn’t spread here to Canada.”