San Francisco: A California university placed two of its police officers on administrative leave because of their involvement in the pepper spraying of passively sitting protesters, while the school's chancellor accelerated a task force's investigation into the incident amid calls for her resignation.

The president of the 10-campus University of California system also weighed in on the growing fallout from Friday's incident at UC Davis, saying that he is "appalled" at images of students being doused with pepper spray and plans a far-reaching, urgent assessment of law enforcement procedures on all campuses.

"I implore students who wish to demonstrate to do so in a peaceful and lawful fashion. I expect campus authorities to honor that right," UC President Mark G Yudof said. All 10 chancellors would convene soon for a discussion "about how to ensure proportional law enforcement response to non-violent protest," he said.

Officials at UC Davis refused to identify the two officers who were place on administrative leave but one was a veteran of many years on the force and the other "fairly new" to the department, the school's Police Chief Annette Spicuzza told The Associated Press. She would not elaborate further because of the pending probe.

Videos posted online of the incident clearly show one riot-gear clad officer dousing the line of protesters with spray as they sit in a line with their arms intertwined.

Spicuzza told the AP that the second officer was identified during an intense review of several videos.

Tags: Occupy Wall Street Protests, Officers in pepper spray incident, pepper spray incident, placed on leave

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