Two of the University of California, Davis police officers involved in the pepper spray protesters sitting being placed on administrative leave as the school principal accelerates the investigation into the incident.
UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi said Sunday that she has been inundated with feedback about the incident, in which an officer fires pepper dispassionately in a line of protesters sitting.
Video of the incident was widely circulated on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter on Saturday in which protesters flinch and cover their faces, but remain passive with their arms entwined, and the audience scream and cry for the officer to stop.
Association of the University, faculty Katehi asked to resign, saying in a letter he had been a "flagrant breach of leadership."
Katehi said he has "full responsibility for the incident," but has resisted calls for his resignation, rather than commit to taking steps to ensure "that this does not happen again."
In a press conference on Saturday, Katehi said the video shows what it is "sad and very, very inappropriate."
"I do not think I have violated the policies of the institution," he said. "I personally worked very hard to make this campus a safe campus for everyone."
However, a police officer who saw the clip called the use of force "pretty standard police procedure."
Katehi remained in a media room for more than two hours after the press conference on Saturday, eventually walk to a van with a group of students from nearly three blocks long, in a coordinated effort remained in complete silence. The Sacramento Bee, said.
The protest was held in support of the global movement occupy Wall Street and in solidarity with the protesters at the University of California, Berkeley, who was nailed by police with batons on 9 November.
Charles J. Kelly, a former lieutenant in the Baltimore Police Department, who wrote the department's use guidelines of the group, said the pepper spray is a "compliance tool" that can be used in patients who do not resist, and it is preferable the simple lift of the protesters.
"When you start to pick up human corpses, you run the risk of harm to them," said Kelly. "The bodies do not have handles on them."
After reviewing the video, Kelly said he observed at least two cases of "active resistance" of the protesters. On one occasion, a woman pulls her arm back of an officer. In the second case, a protester curls into a ball. Each of these actions that required more strength, and baton strikes and pressure point techniques.
"What I'm seeing is pretty standard police procedure," said Kelly.
Images of police actions have served to galvanize support during the busy movement of Wall Street, from the clash between demonstrators and police in Oakland last month that left a veteran of the Iraq war with serious injuries over recent skirmishes New York City, San Diego, Denver and Portland, Oregon
Some of the most notorious cases was viral online, including the use of pepper spray in an activist of 84 years of age in Seattle and a group of women in New York. Seattle's mayor apologized to the activist, and the New York Police Department official with pepper sample in the group of women who lost 10 days of vacation after an internal review.
In the video of protest at UC Davis, the official, a member of the police force of the university, shows a bottle before spraying the contents on the protesters sat in a sweeping motion, while walking back and forth. Most of the protesters have their heads down, but several were hit directly in the face.
Some members of a crowd gathered at the scene shouting and screaming. The crowd then chants: "Shame", as protesters on the ground were taken. The official withdrawal of minutes later, wearing helmets and batons drawn.
Ten people were arrested.
Nine students affected by the pepper spray were treated at the scene, two were taken to hospitals and later released, officials of the university.
UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza said the decision to use pepper spray was in place.
"The students had surrounded the officers," he said Saturday. "They had to leave. They sought her out, but could not get out."
Many of Twitter and Facebook comments and support for students criticized the response.
"Upset stomach video of the police with pepper spray on protesters sitting against the wall Street in Davis, California," the actress Mia Farrow, wrote in a retweet the video.
