The protester said the rally was peaceful until it suddenly got ugly. Now, as he recovers in the hospital, he's not sure if he'll get his vision back in his right eye.
I was at a protest in DTLA where they were firing them. Some cops were flinching when the rounds were fired. So I'm going with both incompetent and malicious.
I saw somebody say that older rounds were designed to be used that way while newer rounds are meant to be aimed at center mass (both from at least a certain distance away to let the energy dissipate before it hits somebody/something), but cops have both kinds in their arsenal and fire them both directly at people from point-blank range - breaking all the rules for their use.