Two police officers caught on video campus using pepper spray on demonstrators occupy seats at the University of California, Davis, have been placed on administrative leave, the school announced today.
"I talked with the students this weekend and I'm outraged," said UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi said in a statement released today. "I have also heard of an overwhelming number of students, faculty, staff and students around the country. I am deeply saddened that this happened on our campus, and as chancellor, I take full responsibility for the incident.
"However, I agree to take the necessary actions to ensure this does not happen again," he said. "I feel very bad about the damage to our students have passed and I pledge to work tirelessly to make the school a more welcoming and safe."
Katehi said it had accelerated the schedule of a working group to investigate the events surrounding the arrests, including submissions from the police administration. It set a deadline of 30 days for the working group issued its report.
Katehi said the working group will be chosen this week and will include teachers, students and staff.
Katehi ad at a time when teachers and students began to ask for his resignation over the incident, which occurred on Friday and was captured on video that postd on YouTube.
PHOTO: In this image from video, a police officer used pepper spray while walking through a line of demonstrators occupy seats on the floor of the University of California, Davis on Friday, November 18, 2011.
Thomas K. Fowler / AP Photo
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In a teleconference on Saturday, Katehi said she did not think it is "appropriate" to resign, the Modesto Bee reported.
Initially expressed support for the police, wearing riot equipment during the stand-off camp, having been to dismantle the University of California at Davis Occupy for camping on college campuses is officially banned, but then said he would to form a working group to investigate the incident.
"The use of pepper spray, as shown in the video is scary for us all and raises many questions about how best to handle situations like this," Katehi wrote in a statement posted on the school website.
Los Angeles attorney Okorie Okorocha pepper spray called irrational and excessive.
"Tear gas is sprayed into the area that we want people to walk away from," he told ABC News Okorocha. "Pepper spray is to keep the people of the ability to mount an attack. Here the police are trying to disperse a crowd. Why the disabled?"
For crowd control and remove the protesters from their camp outside the police in several cities have been using pepper spray and tear gas, which includes a container that broke the skull of a protester Occupy Oakland.
That is still recovering.
After UC Davis Occupy was dismantled Friday, Saturday to protest the students returned with a night march on the campus of approximately 31,000 students.
"I covered my face with the scarf and the shirt, but I could not breathe," said Sarena Grossjan, sophomore who jumped from a tree, where he had been filming the confrontation, to link arms with other protesters.
The itching and burning sensations of being sprayed remained until Saturday morning. "The part that hurts is the pepper spray on open wounds," he said. "My eyes were not so bad. My tears clean that up."
