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The web is flooded with images and news of tense moments between Portland police and N17 protesters on Thursday but perhaps none is getting more attention this morning than one of a Portland police officer firing pepper spray directly into one woman's face.

The image, captured by veteran Oregonian staff photographer, Randy L. Rasmussen, has, as they say, become a web sensation and an iconic photograph from

.

The startling image went out Thursday afternoon on The Oregonian's Twitter account --

-- and was immediately retweeted.

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The web editor for

,

, tweeted overnight: "

So, this will go viral:

#ows"

"Deservedly," replied

, co-editor of Mother Jones.

Sam Graham-Felsen, a writer and speaker and former chief Obama blogger, was also struck by the image.

:

"... Should win a Pulitzer IMHO #ows"

"Amazing photo of use of pepper spray," tweeted

, a New York Times staff writer. Preston asked

, The Oregonian's social media coordinator, if the image was been Photoshopped. It was not, Manzano replied. The Oregonian does not digitally alter images.

On Twitter this morning, Thursday's N17 protests

in Portland.

Many thousands of readers have viewed the image on both

and

Posterous accounts, hundreds have posted the image on their Facebook pages and

.

The Oregonian's image seems destined to join

of an elderly woman in Seattle who was pepper-sprayed by police during an Occupy protest earlier this week. On Thursday,

, a Seattle news and culture website, summed up the overwhelming response to photographer Joshua Trujillo's image this way:

The Washington Post calls the photo a "haunting, cinematic image of brutality, emphasized even more by the chiaroscuro of dark gloved hands holding her head up to lead her to safety," and says that of all the images of violence and peace in Occupy encampments around the country, "none may be as immediately striking as this image of Dorli Rainey."



The Atlantic, meanwhile, predicts that the photo "may become the defining image of this week of Occupy unrest."

-- The Oregonian