Local organizers are rallying around a Lincoln native injured and charged with assaulting officers during a scuffle with police in Rhode Island earlier this month.

Family members of 22-year-old Alex Svoboda, who remains in a Rhode Island hospital, have worked with Nebraskans for Peace and the Nebraska Coalition for Peace to organize a march and vigil in Lincoln.

The Sunday event will occur simultaneously with a similar rally in North Providence.

The Lincoln High graduate and former University of Nebraska-Lincoln student is charged with three counts of simple assault on a police officer, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest — all misdemeanors.

Her family and supporters say North Providence Police officers used excessive force when arresting her Aug. 11, dislocating her knee.

She spent several days in intensive care while doctors restored blood flow to her left leg.

An “erector set” of rods and pins was taken off her leg Wednesday, her father said. Doctors decided her soft tissue needs about two weeks to heal before she begins orthopedic surgery.

“We are in the twilight zone,” Scott Svoboda said. “She really can’t be released home.”

Authorities postponed Alex Svoboda’s court dates until she can leave the hospital. Her next scheduled appearance is Aug. 29 — her 23rd birthday.

Studying Spanish at the Community College of Rhode Island, Svoboda was part of an Industrial Workers of the World group marching down a main street to protest labor practices of a New York food distributor used by a North Providence restaurant.

The restaurant’s owner has said he no longer does business with the distributor and sought a restraining order against the IWW, according to the Providence Journal.

Demonstrators, who did not have a parade permit, say they were following officers’ orders to move out of the street when three officers restrained and tackled Svoboda.

The North Providence Police Department has defended the actions of the officers: Jeffrey D. Antonelli, Mark M. Mastin and William J. Shurick III.

All three remain on active duty, said Deputy Police Chief Paul Marino, and none was notably injured.

There are stark differences between descriptions from the protesters and statements in the arrest report for Svoboda.

According to a narrative by Antonelli, the first officer to come in contact with Svoboda, she started swinging drum sticks at him and cursing while he was trying to guide protesters to the sidewalk.

“As I tried to control her hands the picketers grabbed the female from behind and pulled her into their crowd and I did not see her for a few seconds,” it said.

“I was able to push through the crowd where I again saw the female fighting with Off. Mastin and Off. Shurick. She was swinging the sticks at them as they were attempting to place cuffs on her.”

But Mark Bray, a Providence IWW organizer marching next to Svoboda, said she tripped and landed on the sidewalk after an officer pushed her.

“I saw people catching her as she fell, lifting her back up,” he said. “After she was helped up, the crowd did try to convince officers that we were complying with their orders.

“(The officers) charged into the crowd, and they apprehended and assaulted her.”

Svoboda isn’t violent, her father said.

“… Alexandra is a peaceful and sensitive young lady who would never ‘attack’ any officer and eyewitness and photos back this up,” he wrote in a blog on the Nebraskans for Peace Web site.

The two sides also disagree on the size of the original march. IWW members say there were 30 to 40 people. Police estimated 75 to 100.

The mayor’s chief of staff, Richard Fossa, said the Rhode Island attorney general and Rhode Island State Police launched their own investigations and will review the North Providence Police Department’s internal investigation.

“You can forget the internal investigation, because no one is going to believe that,” Fossa said.

Svoboda has a lawyer for her criminal charges, her father said. That and her care — not civil action against authorities — are her family’s immediate concerns, he said.

He and Jan Enstrom, Svoboda’s mother, plan to return to Lincoln Friday and attend the Sunday vigil.

Svoboda’s brother, Nick, remained in Lincoln this week. He estimated he took 30 to 50 supportive phone calls since the incident.

He’s been one of the head organizers of the Sunday rally in Lincoln, communicating with Nebraskans for Peace and other groups to seek a permit and send out fliers. Thousands of invitations will be sent out by Sunday, he said.

The group was still waiting on the permit Wednesday.

Tensions in North Providence have escalated leading up to that town’s pro-Alex Svoboda rally, to be held at a high school on a thoroughfare there.

Svoboda supporters originally planned to hold a protest march from the police department to town headquarters, without a permit, but meetings with North Providence administrators convinced them to get a permit and change the site.

Residents began passing out fliers for a counter-demonstration — to support police — after the upcoming rally was announced. City officials asked counter-demonstrators to stop, Fossa said, and the leader of the group is cooperating.

Still, North Providence is on high alert. A hospital will have a triage tent in its parking lot. The entire police department is on call, and state police also have been notified.

“We won’t be at the rally, but we’ll close by,” Fossa said.

Bray said demonstrators will be peaceful. The group would have preferred to march near the police department, he said, but the high school is on the same street and the rally will still draw attention.

“We are not expecting any sort of violence.”

Reach Zach Pluhacek at 473-7395 or zpluhacek@journalstar.com.