Mary Anne Williams stood on the sidewalk in front of Suffolk City Hall on Saturday, ringing a small brass bell as occasional weekend traffic passed by. She held a simple, hand-drawn sign that read “We ❤ Our Police.”

She was one of about a dozen people who turned out for a “Pro-Police Rally” that had been narrowly advertised on social media during the past week or so.

“If anyone had turned out, I was going to be satisfied,” Williams said as the occasional passing car beeped its horn in response to signs encouraging them to show their support for the police department.

“All in all, our police departments do an excellent job, and they deserve a thank you once in a while,” she said. “Somebody needs to say, ‘We appreciate what you do for us.’”

Williams, who said she has been planning the rally since February and working on getting the necessary permits since early March, said there had been some backlash from folks who heard about the rally following during the past week, which brought the release of video footage that appears to show a white police officer in South Carolina shooting a fleeing black traffic-stop suspect in the back.

Michael Slager has been fired from the North Charleston, S.C., police department and is in jail facing a murder charge following the release of cellphone video that shows Slager firing his gun eight times at Walter Scott as Scott ran away from the officer.

Slager had previously claimed he had fired in self defense after Scott had allegedly grabbed for the officer’s stun gun during a traffic stop for a broken tail light.

“It sickens me,” Williams said of the video on Saturday. “It’s very difficult to watch. I feel so much for those parents. Nobody wants to see their child die.”

“If the evidence shows that he was wrong, he needs to be punished,” she said of Slager, the murder suspect.

But even if Slager is found guilty of murder, she said, he represents only a small fraction of police officers around the nation, and the rest should be honored and respected.

“When I grew up, anytime you had to deal with the police, it was ‘Yes sir’ and ‘No sir,’” she added.