LOS ANGELES — The weapons pointed at protestors captured in Di Barbadillo’s video from March 25 are called "less-than-lethal," but the community organizer says that’s a misnomer at closer range.

“You’re not supposed to point those weapons in anyone’s faces,” said Barbadillo as she retraced her steps for the first time since recording Los Angeles Police Department officers that night.

Barbadillo was among hundreds of activists who protested the park’s closure and resulting displacement of a homeless community. She explained how she was following police orders to disperse and leave the area when they were confronted by police.

"It was really terrifying," she said. "I didn’t watch the video I took for about 24 hours. I just couldn’t bring myself to watch it."

LAPD's involvement in the closure of Echo Park Lake is under review, with city leaders divided over whether the department should have been involved in the first place. The move came just as the department was under scrutiny for its response to the George Floyd uprisings in 2020.

“Let me say that, overall, I would have preferred that the Echo Park closure, and that facility being fenced, would have been accomplished without any police involvement,” Chief Michel Moore told the Police Commission Tuesday, adding that LAPD became involved after unhoused community members and advocates called for “physical resistance” to the closure. “This required our presence to ensure the safety of everyone involved.”

The incident happened two weeks after a scathing report from City Council found that officers inappropriately used “less-than-lethal” weapons inappropriately in response to demonstrations following the death of George Floyd. On Friday, two more reports found the department mishandled aspects of the protests.

The reports were commissioned by L.A. City Council and the Board of Police Commissioners. The latest reports were conducted by the National Police Foundation and the LAPD. All criticized inadequate training, communication, mass arrests, and strategies to control crowds.

T.T. Williams, a former LAPD senior detective and use of force expert, explained that Barbadillo’s video showed a tactical mistake by officers, who pointed weapons at close range at activists who appear to be retreating.

“These weapons are used as 'less-lethal,' but if they’re used inappropriately they could be lethal,” Williams said. “Apparently, the department has not learned its lesson from last year on the usage of deployment of ‘less-lethal’ weapons and to the issues of Echo Park, where we see the same issues repeating themselves.”

In contrast, Chief Moore said Tuesday that the department improved over its response from 2020, citing only two reported protestor injuries and about a dozen total deployments of "less-lethal" munitions over two nights. The reported injuries include a protestor who says an officer wielding his baton like a baseball bat broke his arm.

Moore added that some demonstrators deployed strobe lights to temporarily blind officers on a skirmish line outside the park and also used lasers that could result in permanent eye damage.

To Barbadillo, tensions are mounting between police and the community organizers who advocate to see the department defunded.

"What I saw in those two nights is not fear," she said. "I saw this sort of emboldeness. They felt like they were supposed to be there doing exactly what they were doing."