Mayor Mike McGinn said he's sorry police pepper-sprayed peaceful Occupy Seattle demonstrators, after a photo of 84-year-old demonstrator Dorli Rainey's dripping face went viral. But the apology didn't satisfy protesters who say the police response has been "excessive."

"To those engaged in peaceful protest, I am sorry that you were pepper-sprayed," McGinn said in a statement Wednesday. The mayor said he has spoken with Rainey.

The confrontations began Tuesday afternoon after demonstrators blocked downtown intersections, delaying commuters. As far back as Oct. 8, police have followed a policy of keeping streets clear, by arrest if necessary.

McGinn said he and Police Chief John Diaz are reviewing two pepper-spray incidents from Tuesday and developing procedures to ensure "appropriate commanders" are on hand at future protests.

Diaz couldn't be reached Wednesday, and police spokesman Sgt. Sean Whitcomb declined to comment, saying, "We'll defer to the mayor." Sgt. Rich O'Neill, head of the police union, did not return calls for comment.

Police said they used pepper spray to disperse a crowd in Belltown, while arresting a 17-year-old girl who swung a stick at officers. Protesters regrouped on Fifth Avenue at Pine Street. "Pepper spray was deployed only against subjects who were either refusing a lawful order to disperse or engaging in assaultive behavior toward officers," said the department's online statement.

In an interview Wednesday night, McGinn said the city is "walking a fine line between protecting public safety without allowing the actions of the police themselves to become a flash point for others."

He said he understood that some protesters in the crowd Tuesday, as well as during previous clashes with police, used the cover of the crowd to provoke violence.

"We're well aware that there are individuals who have been extraordinarily provocative to police over the last six weeks. That was my point in apologizing to peaceful protesters."

But he added it was important he and the police command "critically review what's gone on in order to do the best job we can. We need to have the appropriate police presence, and they need to have the support they need."

Occupy Seattle activists issued a statement Wednesday night saying McGinn's apology did not go far enough. The statement described the group's actions as "nonviolent civil disobedience" and was critical of police response throughout the protests.

"The sheer quantity of officers, vehicles, weapons, hostilities and pepper spray was and is excessive and absolutely unnecessary," said the statement.

The city last week said the protests had cost the city more than $500,000, most of that for police overtime.

Change maker

Dorli Rainey is a longtime activist who recently collected signatures and spoke against the $2 billion Highway 99 tunnel. In a blog called An Old Lady in Combat Boots, she mentions, "I believe change begins in the streets."

The photo, by Seattlepi.com photographer Josh Trujillo, shows her face soaked in pepper spray, along with a liquid applied by fellow protesters to treat it. She told The Associated Press she joined the crowd after hearing helicopters over downtown Seattle, and will participate again in Occupy events.

"I'm pretty tough, I guess," she said.

A pregnant woman and a clergyman also reportedly were among those sprayed.

Wednesday night, Rainey appeared on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann."

"I'm feeling great. I feel so energized. It's amazing what a little pepper spray will do for you," she told the political talk-show host.

She said that when she rode a bus home, people asked her what happened. "I must have looked a fright," she said. "It became a really wonderful educational opportunity for me to convert a busload full of people to our way of thinking."

At the end of the nearly 10-minute interview, Olbermann chuckled and said, "You're one of my heroes now."

Tuesday's incident came just a day after the Seattle City Council passed a resolution supporting the grievances of the Occupy movement, a protest against plutocracy that began on New York's Wall Street and spread internationally.

Thursday afternoon, Occupy participants are to join the labor-union group Working Washington at the Montlake Bridge to call for more federal investment in jobs fixing old infrastructure.

New problem

Protesters and the city might be headed for another standoff Friday night. Occupy Seattle organizers sought a Parks Department permit for a hip-hop concert from 5 to 10 p.m. in Westlake Park. Parks officials said that was too late for a concert.

Dewey Potter, parks spokeswoman, said nearby residents had complained about noise during two previous concerts. The department asked the Occupy Seattle representatives not to amplify music after dark, which falls at about 5:30 p.m.

But a news release sent out by "Hip Hop Occupies" about to publicize Friday's concert said the rally and performances would be from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Meanwhile, Princeton University Professor Cornel West, who made news recently for criticizing President Obama's lack of focus on ending poverty, gave a pep talk to about 200 Occupy Seattle supporters Wednesday.

He compared the mostly young activists' commitment to saxophonist John Coltrane and Seattle guitar legend Jimi Hendrix, whose statue sits across the street from the Occupy camp at Seattle Central Community College.

"Yes, it is a love movement; it's what John Coltrane called 'A Love Supreme.' When you have a 'love supreme,' you will stand out in the rain. ... It's precisely because we love the people that we hate injustice."

West told the group it wasn't necessary, at what he called an "early stage" of the Occupy movement, to issue specific demands. "We want to change the whole ethos of the nation; we want to change the whole ethos of the world," he said.

West lamented that the 14th Amendment, "which was written for what, the 4.2 million ex-black slaves in America who had their personhood affirmed by the 14th amendment, now a hundred-some years later appropriated over and over again by corporations saying they're a person, that they have the same rights as individuals."

When told of Tuesday's pepper-spraying, he said, "I think [police] ought to be ashamed of themselves."

West was to speak Wednesday night at Green River Community College in Auburn, and Thursday visit Occupy Oakland, site of a police crackdown Oct. 25 that turned violent. "I asked my mama to say a prayer for me," joked West.

Staff reporter Jeff Hodson contributed to this report.

Mike Lindblom: 206-515-5631 or mlindblom@seattletimes.com. On Twitter @mikelindblom.

Lynn Thompson: 206-464-8305 or lthompson@seattletimes.com. On Twitter @lthompsontimes