Christopher Brown said it felt like his lungs were closing in as he and about 40 other men struggled to breathe after a guard aimed pepper spray into a holding cell Saturday night at the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison.

Brown, 22, of Baton Rouge, was one of 102 people arrested Saturday night while protesting along Airline Highway in front of the Baton Rouge Police Department headquarters. That protest was one of several last weekend following the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling by a Baton Rouge police officer. Police arrested people at three demonstrations, mostly on counts they had illegally stepped into the road.

Brown says a prison guard fired pepper spray into the holding cell he was in multiple times because of complaints the jailed protesters were being too loud.

"It was 40 to 50 people in one cell, of course there was loud noise. I mean, what do you expect?" Brown said. "You can't tell us to basically shut up. I mean, we have the right to talk."

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Casey Rayborn Hicks, the spokeswoman for the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office, denied Brown's account but acknowledged pepper spray was used on one protester who was arrested on Saturday.

She said the person sprayed was being belligerent.

"One inmate had to be sprayed after he refused commands, refused to stop yelling and to sit down while deputies were trying to book them in," Hicks said in an email statement.

Many of those arrested described a longer stay than they expected when detained by police. Some donned orange jumpsuits and said they ended up sharing cells with inmates booked for more serious crimes.

Protesters have complained that police arrested some people who committed no crimes. But law enforcement officials have defended their response, saying they have been very clear that any protests can't spill into streets and block traffic. They've said they focused their arrests on those who did that or committed some other infraction.

Most were booked on a count of simple obstruction of a highway of commerce -- a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and a $200 fine. Nearly all of the protesters arrested this weekend were released within 24 hours after posting $250 bonds.

Abigail Clingo, a 26-year-old New Orleanian arrested during a downtown protest Sunday, claimed she and a group of women detained in a holding cell were threatened with pepper spray when they tried to lift their spirits by singing together.

"They told us that was not tolerated," said Clingo, who was arrested after she refused to move as an armored vehicle pushed slowly pushed through a crowd.

Their group wasn't directly pepper sprayed, but residue of the pungent cloud wafted into their cell after a nearby incident, she said.

"All of a sudden, we were sneezing and coughing and had a burning sensation," she said. "So we tried to be careful and keep ourselves quiet because we didn't want that to happen to us."

Tracie Washington, a spokeswoman with the National Lawyers Guild, said a group of at least 20 attorneys is working to represent 100 to 125 protesters arrested in Baton Rouge.

They've paid the bond to release many of them.

Hicks said Tuesday that 11 protesters were still in prison.

"Three of which had outstanding warrants and seven had multiple charges such as drug possession and resisting," she said.

Updated numbers on how many remained in jail Wednesday were unavailable.

Several protesters complained of hostile treatment by law enforcement and overcrowded cells. Hicks said inmates being held at the jail prior to the protests were relocated to other detention facilities in the state to make room for the influx of protesters.

DeRay McKesson, a prominent Black Lives Matter activist who was active in the Ferguson police protests that followed the death of Michael Brown, was among those arrested during the protest along Airline Highway Saturday night. He said officers and prison guards were extremely hostile toward them. McKesson claims he overheard one officer demanding a girl unlock her cellphone and delete all the photos she had taken while protesting.

Lee Stranahan, a reporter for Breitbart, a conservative national news website, was arrested while covering Saturday night's protest. He called the policing and detention practices for a group of misdemeanor offenders overkill, noting they were even shown a prison rape-prevention video in jail.