Supporters of embattled D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray said Wednesday that he should not step down after revelations that an illegal shadow campaign helped elect him in 2010.

“We cannot continue to be people who rush to judgment,” the Rev. Graylan Hagler of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ said at a rally outside the John A. Wilson Building. “We believe that the mayor deserves due process. The mayor deserves respect. The mayor deserves fairness.”