Conflict erupted between police and attendees at the Black Lives Matter conference in Cleveland on Sunday after police officers began using pepper spray to a control a crowd during a demonstration of civil disobedience.

The confrontation began when police arrested a 14-year-old African-American boy who was inebriated on a public bus near Cleveland State University. After the police handcuffed the teen, the crowd began chanting for the cuffs to be removed, while the officers were escorting the boy to an EMS truck, reports The Huffington Post. The police later decided to transport the teenager in a police vehicle, instead.

That's when the activists locked arms and made a circle around the car to prevent it from moving.

In response, "a Transit Police officer used a general burst of pepper spray in an attempt to push back the crowd, to no avail," said the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Police in a statement issued on Sunday.

The activists at the conference, officially known as "The National Convening of the Movement for Black Lives," argue the officer's response was a classic example of why police need to be retrained.

"I was told the police are pepper spraying people down the street and I'm seeing people run for milk so they can be protected from pepper spray all because people are asking what happening to a young man," said Rhonda Y. Williams, history professor at Case Western Reserve as NBC affiliate WKYC 11 Alive reported.

"When we have an officer who comes out of nowhere and is pushing people and then takes out and just starts spraying with his pepper spray, that's not deescalating," Williams added.

According to Edward Little, a criminal and juvenile justice consultant, the confrontation ensued after the activists began questioning RTA police about why the boy was being arrested. "Folks were asking what is going on? Why are you trying to arrest this young man? All of us just saw what happened to Sandra Bland in Texas so forgive us if we are a little concerned," Little said.

Minutes later, more officers were called to the scene while more activists poured into the crowd.

"They begin to form a barricade around the car urging the police to let the young man go but they wouldn't and when they were linking arms and doing chants one of the police officers began pepper spraying the whole line," conference attendee Destinee Henton said. "They were on the ground covering their faces. He was still spraying them toward the ground so that's when more more people started coming out. "A moment where deescalation [measures] should've been taking place in, [instead] escalation happened."

Following the boy's arrest, he was released into his mother's custody.

No arrests were made during the conflict.