The FINANCIAL — As a video of an officer in riot gear blasting pepper spray into the faces of seated protesters at a northern California university spread, outrage came quickly, followed almost as quickly by defence from police and calls for the chancellor's resignation.
University of California Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi said in a statement on Saturday she was forming a task force to investigate the police action and the video images she said were "chilling."
However, a law enforcement official who watched the clip called the use of force "fairly standard police procedure."
In the video, an officer dispassionately pepper-sprays a line of several sitting protesters who flinch and cover their faces but remain passive with their arms interlocked as onlookers shriek and scream out for the officer to stop.As the images were circulated widely on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter on Saturday, the university's faculty association called on Katehi to resign, saying in a letter there had been a "gross failure of leadership."
At a news conference, Katehi said what the video shows is "sad and really very inappropriate", but defended her leadership and said she had no plans to resign.
"I do not think that I have violated the policies of the institution," she said. "I have worked personally very hard to make this campus a safe campus for all."
Katehi remained in a media room for more than two hours after the news conference, eventually walking to an SUV past a group of students nearly three blocks long who, in a coordinated effort, remained completely silent, The Sacramento Bee said.
The protest was held in support of the overall Occupy Wall Street movement and in solidarity with protesters at the University of California, Berkeley who were jabbed by police with batons on November 9. Charles J. Kelly, a former Baltimore Police Department lieutenant who wrote the department's use of force guidelines, said pepper spray is a "compliance tool" that can be used on subjects who do not resist, and is preferable to simply lifting protesters.
After reviewing the video, Kelly said he observed at least two cases of "active resistance" from protesters. In one instance, a woman pulls her arm back from an officer. In the second instance, a protester curls into a ball. Each of those actions could have warranted more force, including baton strikes and pressure-point techniques.
In the video of the UC Davis protest, the officer, a member of the university police force, displays a bottle before spraying its contents on the seated protesters 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.
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