PRINCETON - The Princeton council and mayor's office bought lunch for the Princeton police Friday because the department had a taxing week of headlines from alleged mistreatment of a university professor's arrest.

"It's been a long, difficult week," Councilwoman Jo Butler said Friday.

Butler said council members used their own money to pay for chips and sandwiches before dropping the food off at the police department as a gesture of support.

"It's a little vote of confidence," she said.

The gesture comes after an incident last Saturday that prompted national attention.

Imani Perry, a professor of African American studies at Princeton University, was stopped for speeding on Mercer Road.

Officers arrested Perry after discovering that she was driving on a suspended license and that there was a warrant out for her arrest, stemming from two parking tickets she received in November and December of 2012.

Perry took to Facebook following the arrest and said she was mistreated by the police.

"The police treated me inappropriately and disproportionately," she wrote in a lengthy Facebook post. "The fact of my blackness is not incidental to this matter."

The post drew national attention and scrutiny to both Perry and the Princeton police department. That attention grew when a video of Perry's arrest was released by the police department.

Perry announced on Facebook Wednesday that she was shutting down her Twitter account because of hackers and harassment.

Butler said Friday that the town has suffered as well, because of the recent attention.

"A lot of the initiatives upon which we've been working really hard have come under fire this week and it's really disappointing," Butler said.

Anna Merriman may be reached at amerriman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @anna_merriman Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook.