Liz Nichols joined the Occupy Portland protests on Thursday planning to get arrested. She hoped to make a quiet statement against big banks. Instead, she got a face full of pepper spray and became an Internet sensation thanks to a photo of the incident that went viral.

The soft-spoken 20-year-old who's only about 5 feet tall joined a clutch of protesters sitting inside Chase Bank. Police showed up, and she asked to be arrested. But officers refused.

She said they moved her to the sidewalk at Southwest Sixth Avenue and Yamhill Street across from Pioneer Courthouse Square. She crossed the street to see a friend and then returned to a chaotic scene in front of the bank.

A Portland police video, posted on YouTube, shows Nichols and other protesters sandwiched between mounted police herding people away from Chase Bank and a swarm of riot police jostling them down the sidewalk.

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A police van blared a warning, telling people they risked arrest if they ventured into the street. Nichols and others stayed on the sidewalk. Laura Seeton, a 31-year-old Portlander who locked arms with Nichols, said they had nowhere to go as people in back pushed and the riot police in front shoved back.

"It was terrifying," Seeton said.

Nichols said a policewoman jabbed her in the ribs with a baton and pressed it against her throat. That made her angry.

She yelled at the officer, saying she was being mistreated. That's when another officer shot her with pepper spray. A photo by The Oregonian's Randy L. Rasmussen, which flashed across social media websites, shows Nichols was sprayed from a few feet away.

"It felt like my face, ears and hands were on fire," she said.

She dropped to the ground, and police yanked her into their ranks.

"She was dragged away by her hair and disappeared into the black of their uniforms," Seeton said.

An officer later doused her burning face with water and she was booked into Multnomah County jail, where officers showed her Rasmussen's photo.

Next time you get pepper sprayed, keep your mouth shut, she said they told her.

Her hands still burned after they released her about 2 a.m.

On Friday, she felt fine for an arraignment hearing before Multnomah County Circuit Judge Youlee You.

Originally facing two misdemeanors, the district attorney's office downgraded the charges to violations of three counts of interfering with a police officer.

She pleaded not guilty.

"I'll fight this," she told The Oregonian.

She'll be tried Jan. 9, three days after a federal hearing on charges stemming from her first Occupy Portland arrest at Terry Shrunk Plaza last Sunday. She faces charges in that case of failure to comply with lawful direction for handcuffing herself to a barrel.

Raised in Mountain Home, Ark., a town of about 1,600, she plans to stay in Portland as long as the Occupy movement is alive. She's motivated to protest by the plight of her parents. Her mother has multiple sclerosis and her father was disabled by a back injury. They're both surviving on his Social Security disability checks.

She called her dad from the police van and talked to her mother this morning.

"She said she's proud of me," Nichols said.

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