Upset with the police bureau's use of force at Saturday's rally, Portland protesters are looking for ways to avoid such a reaction in the future when they demonstrate in public.

, an offshoot of the Occupy Portland movement, will meet Wednesday to reflect on the rally and discuss ideas for mitigating police officers' use of force, which some protesters have called excessive and violent.

"We keep running into this realization that the police are going to use force on us whenever we're in the streets," said spokesperson Nicholas Caleb.

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The roughly 300-person rally against funding cuts to social and public services was mostly peaceful, but ended up with 20 people pepper-sprayed and one demonstrator arrested after police stopped the marchers from making a left turn onto a street in the Lloyd District.

Police began pepper-spraying demonstrators after they were confronted with wooden shields, department spokesperson Pete Simpson said.

The group also didn't have a permit for the rally, which is required for those marching on public streets. If the group had a permit, police would have been willing to escort the protesters through a route already approved by the department, Simpson said.

Demonstrators argue, however, that a permit should not be required for demonstrations.

"We believe to express political dissent we shouldn't have to ask permission," said Mike Losier, another spokesperson for the group.

The police department's response to the group had become increasingly violent since the beginning of

, Caleb said.

"They're using riot police when there isn't a riot going on. People get bum rushed by cops in paramilitary fashion and hog tied," Caleb said.

Occupy Portland and other groups hold anti-austerity march 20 Gallery: Occupy Portland and other groups hold anti-austerity march

These include riot police taunting protesters, or "fist bumping" one another in celebration, Caleb said.

While Simpson can't speak to most of the claims, he denies the behavior, claiming the group routinely lies about police actions and has acted with hostility toward the department since the beginning of the movement.

What Simpson did verify was the department's quick use of riot police, a necessity, he said, given some in the group's tendency to use violence against officers.

"There's been a number of times where we've got officers doing crowd management that have been hurt," Simpson said.

During the latest protest, some police officers were knocked from their bikes, Simpson said.

However, Caleb said those instances have vastly diminished, and are not the group's intentions.

"Our actions are not at all remotely close to being about harming people. They're usually about doing a banner drop, giving a speech outside of a bank, or doing a sit-in," Caleb said. "It's never about putting someone in harm's way."