A local woman has organized a pro-police rally downtown on Saturday.

Mary Anne Williams said she anticipated the event being “just some citizens out there with some signs and some balloons,” but the word is getting out.

“I don’t think it’s going to be real big,” she said, despite the fact a couple of local organizations have shared news of it on their Facebook pages. She initially invited mostly friends and neighbors.

Williams, who moved to Suffolk 25 or 30 years ago after having lived in Portsmouth and Chesapeake, said she planned the rally to support local officers.

“There’s been so much bad publicity about policemen lately, and I just think our policemen do an outstanding job,” she said, mentioning highly publicized police shootings in nearby cities and other states as of late.

But Williams sees police officers from another perspective, she said. She recalled being stranded on a local highway with car trouble one time on a hot day and having a police officer come along, call a wrecker for her and allow her to sit in his air-conditioned car.

“Everything you hear now is bad news, and I just think there needs to be some positive promotion out there for them,” she said. “They do protect us, and they are our hometown heroes.”

The rally is planned from noon to 2 p.m. in front of city hall, 442 W. Washington St. It will take place on the sidewalk, she said.

“We’re not going to take up the street,” she said.

Williams said the event has been cleared by police.

“I want it to be about them, not about me,” she said.