When clashes with protesters and journalists began, officers used more force than LAPD policies allow, the report found.
Officers shot 146 less-than-lethal rounds, including foam projectiles that were fired directly into the crowd rather than at the ground as LAPD policy mandates. Police also used batons to strike protesters and journalists more than 100 times. Many of the baton strikes were inflicted on peaceful demonstrators, the report found.
"Officers struck individuals who appeared to be passively standing in place, not engaging in aggressive and/or combative behavior," the report said.
Peter Bibring, a staff attorney for the ACLU of Southern California, said the revelations about the use of batons was one of the most startling findings in the LAPD report.
"It revealed that officers and supervisors believed they were free to use their batons ... if peaceful protesters failed to respond to dispersal orders quickly enough. Knowledge that this is wrong is the basic use of force policy," he said.
The report concluded that the source of the incident was a group of 20 to 30 individuals who provoked police by throwing sticks, pieces of concrete and water bottles filled with ice and gravel.
LAPD officials decided to disperse the crowd by declaring an unlawful assembly. Yet even as commanders tried to gain control of the situation, they failed to give protesters sufficient notice to disperse, the report found.
A sound truck that would have allowed police to deliver their order for the crowd to leave never arrived on the skirmish line and the message was broadcast from a helicopter in English after riot-helmeted Metro officers had already begun to clear the park. The declaration did not include required directions on where to go.
Police wound up moving the small group of agitators toward peaceful protesters and members of the media assembled in the northern section of the park.
"Had a higher degree of leadership been exhibited that afternoon, the events of May 1, 2007, may have never occurred," the report concluded.
Carter said he had been advised by his attorney not to comment, but he disputed the information in the report.
The president of the police officers union said the report properly acknowledged poor planning and communication problems but said it is still far too early to judge the actions of individual officers.
