The chancellor of the University of California, Davis, said yesterday she had ordered an investigation into the police use of pepper spray on a dozen protesters a day earlier.
Videos of the episode on Friday afternoon show police officers dousing the protesters - mostly students, according to local reports - with orange-tinted pepper spray after repeatedly asking them to disperse from the main quad on campus. The protesters were seated with their arms linked.
The use of the chemical agent was filmed and photographed by witnesses who uploaded their recordings, angering many who viewed them on YouTube and other websites. Ten people were arrested, the university said on Friday.
In a statement yesterday, the chancellor, Linda P.B. Katehi, said she was saddened by the events.
"The use of pepper spray as shown on the video is chilling to us all and raises many questions about how best to handle situations like this," Ms Katehi said. Her statement said she was forming a task force to investigate the episode and asking university officials to review existing policies about encampments like the one that was erected on the campus this week.
Asked about demands by some faculty members for her resignation, Ms Katehi said at a press conference she did not deem it appropriate to resign "at this point".
The use of the chemical agent in Davis came at the end of a week that also saw the police evict protesters from the birthplace of the two-month-old Occupy Wall Street movement in New York City. Pepper spray was also used in Seattle on Tuesday.
More than a dozen videos of the Davis encounter have been uploaded to YouTube since Friday.
New York Times