[6] The strike began, according to The Washington Post, "as a managerial protest at the state-run oil company, but evolved into a broad effort supported by the country's largest business and labor groups to force Chávez from power.

[16] As the march turned a corner and began to approach the Miraflores at about 2:00 pm, the National Guard fired about twelve tear gas canisters from behind the palace walls and the protesters fled back down the road.

[18] On Baralt Avenue, near the Llaguno Overpass as the march inched closer hundreds of Chávez supporters gathered and began throwing large rocks, Molotov cocktails and even tear gas at the demonstrators.

[22] According to surgeons, the marchers had been shot in the back with handgun fire while fleeing and others were severely injured from 7.62×51mm NATO military rounds from Fal rifles, standard equipment of the National Guard defending Chávez.

A number of high-ranking military officers, led by Vice Admiral Héctor Ramírez, recorded a video message broadcast later in the day that held Chávez responsible for massacring innocent people using snipers, referring to at least six dead and dozens wounded.

However, this claim has never been proven and is contested by the rest of the reporters present, such as Javier Ignacio Mayorca, Mayela León and Adrián Criscaut, who affirmed that the military officers were informed of the death of Tortoza during the filming of the message.

The head of the Casa Militar at the time, the guard of the president of Venezuela, Colonel Almidien Ramon Moreno Acosta, states in a report presented on May 15, 2002 before the National Assembly that ten suspects were detained on April 11 under the accusation of being snipers.

[33] Bernal, a Chávez supporter and former leader of an elite police force, was accused by a Venezuelan military officer of complying with orders from the Defense Ministry to shoot opposition demonstrators.

[33] The 2003 documentary titled The Revolution Will Not Be Televised contradicts claims by private media in Venezuela that the pro-Chávez group was firing on the opposition protest from Llaguno Bridge.

While this documentary has been criticized by another called X-Ray of a Lie and American academic Brian Nelson, who argue that the footage is manipulated and obscures Metropolitan Police on the street below,[35][self-published source] it's not clear whether this is relevant to the veracity of the claim that pro-Chávez gunmen were not firing on opposition protesters from the bridge.

The 2004 documentary Puente Llaguno: Claves de una Masacre claimed that the Chavistas on the bridge did not begin shooting until 4:38 pm, by which time most of the opposition deaths had already occurred.

After 5:30 pm when most of the gunfire concluded, the filmmakers of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised used manipulated footage, according to Nelson, in order to show an empty Baralt Avenue that Chavistas were overlooking.

However, upon Chávez's return on 14 April, cleaning crews under the orders of Freddy Bernal, mayor of the Libertador Municipality and leader of the Bolivarian Circles, began to fix the damages in the street.

The crews swiftly repaired the traffic lights, restored the kiosks, painted the walls, covered the splinters in the cement surfaces and replaced the damaged street lamps free of charge.

[37] The people filmed shooting from the Puente Llaguno bridge were initially identified as being pro-Chávez political activists Rafael Cabrices, Richard Peñalver [es], Henry Atencio, and Nicolás Rivera.