U.C. Davis 11-18-11 (Occupy Wall Street, Occupy UC Davis)

Faculty and students are calling for the resignation of University of California, Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi today after a campus police officer directly pepper-sprayed occupy movement protesters who had locked arms and were seated on the ground last week.

"I personally feel really very bad about what happened to students in the whole incident," Katehi said.

At a teleconference Saturday, Katehi said she didn't think it's "appropriate" for her to resign, the Modesto Bee reported.

She initially voiced support of the police, who wore riot-gear during the stand-off, having given them to order to dismantle the UC Davis Occupy encampment because camping on college grounds is officially forbidden.

Katehi announced she had formed a task force to probe Friday's pepper spraying incident on campus, which was captured on camera by several onlookers.

"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," Katehi wrote in a statement posted on the school's website.

The offcers involved in the incident has been placed on leave, The Associated Press reported.

But Los Angeles attorney Okorie Okorocha called the pepper spraying unreasoned and excessive.

"Tear gas you spray in the area you want people to move away from," Okorocha told ABC News. "Pepper spray is to keep the people from being able to mount an attack. Here the police officer is trying to disperse a crowd. Why would you incapacitate them?"

To control crowds and remove demonstrators from their open-air encampments, police in various cities have been using pepper spray and tear gas, including a canister that fractured the skull of one Occupy Oakland protester.

He is still recovering.

After the UC Davis Occupy was disassembled Friday, students on Saturday resumed their protest with a night time rally on the roughly 31,000-student campus.

"I covered my face with my scarf and sweatshirt, but I couldn't breathe," said Sarena Grossjan, a sophomore who hopped from a tree, where'd she'd been filming the confrontation, to link arms with other protesters.

The stinging and burning sensations from being sprayed lingered until Saturday morning. "The part that hurt the most was the pepper spray in open sores," she said. "My eyes weren't that bad. My tears cleaned that out." source