Grand jury in New Mexico charged the actor for a shooting on Rust set that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins
Actor Alec Baldwin is facing a new involuntary manslaughter charge over the 2021 fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the movie Rust.
A Santa Fe, New Mexico, grand jury indicted Baldwin on Friday, months after prosecutors had dismissed the same criminal charge against him.
During an October 2021 rehearsal on the set of Rust, a western drama, Baldwin was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins when it went off, fatally striking her and wounding Joel Souza, the film’s director.
Baldwin, a co-producer and star of the film, has said he did not pull the trigger, but pulled back the hammer of the gun before it fired.
Last April, special prosecutors dismissed the involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin, saying the firearm might have been modified prior to the shooting and malfunctioned and that forensic analysis was warranted. But in August, prosecutors said they were considering re-filing the charges after a new analysis of the weapon was completed.
I’m like 90% sure now that the absolutely glacial pace this is moving at confirms that the only reason verdicts come down so quickly in most other cases is because most accused can’t afford the court and lawyer’s fees to keep fighting for as long as they realistically could.
Except if your name is Trump. Somehow he’s able to drag out all his court cases and not pay his lawyers.
That I chalk more up to how pants shittingly terrified judges are of setting a new precedent, let alone one as impactful as jailing a former president. None of them want to be the guy who goes down in history as having locked up a major political figure without the most air tight case imaginable.
This is the most airtight case imaginable. We sat here and watched him crime right on tv.
He also has just straight-up admitted to other big crimes on camera as well.
Yo fuck it. Make me an honorary reader of the judicial order to send Trump to prison. I’ll do it on National television. Just haul my ass to Australia or something afterwards so I can avoid the crazed MAGA mobs.
Thats because he has people pretending to be lawyers instead of real lawyers
Also being a lawyer for a famous person is a great way to pivot into more lucrative life paths, as demonstrated by Robert Kardashian.
This from the start has seemed to me like a prosecutor trying to make a name for themselves by taking down a famous person.
If you’re doing a scene where you throw acid on somebody is the person throwing the acid supposed to check to make sure it’s not actually acid before they throw it?
Should they check to make sure the knife they’re about to stab someone with is actually a prop?
If you get to the person who’s been told to “do this action convincingly” and you want them to double check all the safety work you’re doing it wrong. Their job isn’t making sure they’ve been given safe tools, it’s using safe tools to make someone that’s fake but convincing.
Everyone in the armoring company should be charged with murder … but Alec Baldwin did not put live rounds into a gun. He went into work, did his job, and because other people screwed up someone got shot. Maybe the industry itself needs to change but that shouldn’t be Alec Baldwin’s problem. That’s not justice.
Baldwin was in charge. He wasn’t just an Actor. He took several actions that made the set less safe that day.
He’s being charged because he was an executive producer not because he pulled the trigger
He’s being charged for pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger. Him being an executive is an argument against the “I was told it was unloaded” defense. NM law is clear on criminal negligence with a firearm and there is no movie production exemption. Being handed a gun by someone else who says it is safe does not negate liability under the law. His failures as a producer with prior safety lapses and incidents leading up to the tragedy are important as well, but at the end of the day he pulled the trigger and that’s what he is being charged for.
Executive producer typically means you are the money behind the project, not that you have hands-on control of the daily details.
EP credits can be given for any number of reasons and their impact on the project varies greatly.
Some do nothing and just put up some cash, some are involved in every action/word in the script and will always be on setn
And liability
but Alec Baldwin did not put live rounds into a gun.
He was pointing the gun at someone. That should never happen.
that shouldn’t be Alec Baldwin’s problem
He was a producer on a set which was being mismanaged to the extent that a large proportion of the crew had just walked off the job over safety concerns.
It is very much his problem.
Well my understanding is that he was an executive producer on the film, which is a leadership position that impacts decisions on hiring staff like armory/weapons consultants.
As an actor he’s probably not responsible but as EP he is .
The cinematographer wasn’t an actor. They weren’t rolling. Why would you aim a (ostensibly prop) gun at somebody during a time when the cameras weren’t rolling and they’re not an actor?
Because they were doing a camera test. The gun was drawn and pointed in the direction of the camera, which had people behind it because there weren’t supposed to be live rounds in the gun.
I thought this had been settled that it was the fault of the master amorer who was wholly unqualified to be doing the job.
There is blame from the armorer for sure, but I thought I heard something about real guns being on set to shoot for practice. Don’t take my word on that. If that was the case I do think Alec should take part of the blame, because real weapons have no place on a set. If you want actors to have target practice you take them to a gun range.
Sorry for being a bit out of the loop. Did Baldwin have knowledge that live ammo was not unheard of on the set?
The set was not meant to have any live ammo. It was a “cold” set.
The live ammo actually came from the prop supply company, co-mingled with dummy rounds.
The live rounds were re-loads into casings that would normally be dummy rounds, because a previous film used them to train the actors how to react to live fire from their guns.
The live rounds were then turned over to the prop company at the end of that film, and at some point became co-mingled with dummy rounds and then sent out to the Rust film location.
The armorer should have checked every dummy round. But didn’t even know how to do so. The re-loads were also slightly different looking than the standard dummy round. (red paint in the logo vs blue for the dummy)
As a note, when questioned by police, the armorer didn’t even know the name brand of the dummy rounds.
It’s amazing that people who are oblivious to the facts have such strong opinions defending a guy who shot and killed someone.
Even as an actor, if you are handed a replica of a deadly weapon you have a responsibility to make sure it is functioning properly and safe. And every actor should know that those firearms they get handed are most often real and can fire real ammunition. In such an environment, (particularly if you are also a producer - aka management), YOU are the final safety step before the director yells Action!
The “I didn’t know it was loaded” is never a legal excuse for anyone at any time.
Except that’s not how it works at all.
Proper procedure is for the prop master and armorer to be responsible for making sure the weapon is safe. They will then hand it off to whoever, and will loudly announce “cold gun”.
The gun can be handed to an assistant or the actor, if it is passed to an assistant first, when they hand it over to the actor they, too, must announce “cold gun”.
This lets everyone on set know that the gun has been verified safe by the armorer.
Baldwin was handed a gun, and the person handing it over loudly announced “cold gun”. He was then expected to treat it like it was not loaded, because he was loudly told.
The reason why you hire an armorer in the first place is because you don’t want your actors to think they know how to handle weapons. You want positive control of every weapon on set.
That broke down on the Rust set.
The story of how that broke down on the Rust set is actually quite interesting. It was a combination of nepotism (the armorer was the daughter of a famous armorer, and got the job through her dad’s connections) and the complete failure on the part of a prop company.
See, the live rounds were reloads, loaded into the exact same casings as the dummy rounds normally used. The reason the reloads were made was actually valid. A different armorer on a different film shoot made them to let the actors of that film get an idea of how the guns they were using would actually kick.
At the end of that film, the live rounds got co-mingled with the returned dummy rounds, and then those co-mingled rounds were rented out to the Rust production.
The armorer for Rust should have caught these rounds. They were not completely identical to the dummy rounds. But this was her second film, and she had never actually worked with live ammo.
When questioned by police after the shooting, she didn’t even know the brand name on the dummy rounds.
Anyway, she had prepped the gun for filming, and then the assistant director took it from her cart and handed it to Baldwin, announcing “cold gun”. The assistant director did not check the gun either, he just grabbed it and handed it off.
As a note, there were not supposed to be any live rounds, or even any blanks on set. Just dummy rounds.
The other failure here was actually sort of on the victims. Industry standards for filming scenes like that is to use a monitor, and not have anyone standing in the potential path of a bullet, even if there are no bullets. The cinematographer and director were both standing behind the camera. Mostly because setting up a monitor takes time, and they were under a bit of a crunch to get the scene filmed.
In the US, “I didn’t know it was loaded” is not a legal excuse. Try it in court yourself and see how far it gets you.
The VERY first rule about firearms is that 'All guns are treated as if loaded at all times". And you NEVER trust anyone when they tell you it’s unloaded. You check yourself to be sure. This includes a prop gun handed to you by a prop person who announces “cold gun!” It takes mere seconds to check it yourself. No excuses…
Your last paragraph shows even more negligence on the part of Baldwin. He broke another cardinal rule of gun safety by pointing an assumed unloaded gun at something he wasn’t intending to destroy or kill. And coupled with supposed rush to film, added to the complete breakdown of basic common sense firearms safety rules.
There was negligence all around that ended at Baldwin. And no one else gets away with that much negligence, (remember he was also a producer - The Boss), in a fatal “accident” and doesn’t get tried in court. Because Baldwin is famous and rich should not prevent his day in court.
You’re confusing the firing range for the movie set.
There are different rules, and in fact, there have been court cases saying that responsibility for the weapon being safe or not is completely on the armorer.
Baldwin was told “cold gun”. That’s how movie sets communicate a safe weapon. Full stop.
The great example is if an actor is supposed to throw acid on someone for a scene, do you expect the actor to check that it’s actually water? Or do you expect the person who is paid to check it to make sure?
Baldwin followed industry procedure of accepting a weapon that was declared cold. It was handed to him by the Assistant Director, the person normally tasked with ensuring safety on set.
Again “I didn’t know it was loaded” is not an acceptable excuse in a court of law when someone dies. And as a producer, Baldwin was also a boss of the movie. He also shares a responsibility to make sure competent people are hired to do dangerous jobs. He also broke your industry protocol when he pointed that gun directly at other people when he pulled the trigger during a break in filming. He very much appears to culpable for a good amount of the negligence that got someone killed.
He needs to be charged and go through the legal process like anyone else would be, (hence the involuntary homicide charge). He should get no pass because he’s a rich and famous actor. If the court says it wasn’t or was his fault, then fine. The evidence was heard and the court rendered a legal decision and it’s done.
It was loaded with dummy rounds, and one real round.
Can you tell the difference with a glance? No? And you expect actors to be able to tell?
He wasn’t just fucking around with the gun, either, he was working with the director and cinematographer for a camera test.
The three of them were walking through the motions that would be used for the actual scene, complete with costumes and props. They were trying to get the positioning and lighting right.
I don’t know why this is so hard to understand for you.
And again, he doesn’t need to go through any process, because the precedent here is clear. The armorer is the person with the full responsibility for making sure that the weapons on set are safe. She was the one who loaded the gun.
If this happened in any other state, Baldwin would never have been charged. But it’s New Mexico, and Baldwin made fun of Trump. The prosecutor is trying to make a name for himself by going after someone Trump hates.
Yes, I can. And anyone who is going to handling dangerous items needs to be trained in properly handling them safely at all times. Even a complete novice can easily tell the difference just by looking, particularly after being shown how - it ain’t rocket surgery. And it takes mere seconds to make that check. Being an “actor” is NOT a valid excuse. Job safety is a real thing. And it runs from the top down to the end users. And Baldwin failed the safety part on two counts - being a boss on the movie by making or allowing a bad hire for an important safety job and as the end user.
He STILL broke a rule about safety on the set. Don’t point guns directly at people - even movies sets have rules about that according to you.
And yes, the set armorer has primary responsibility for firearms safety on set. But that responsibility doesn’t end there - it continues down the line of EVERYONE who is involved with the scene.
Nor do I understand the fear of Baldwin being charged. If, as you say, there is precedent for his innocence, then his money and fame should guarantee a not guilty verdict.
As far as the “political witch hunt” goes - maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. That’s another topic IMO. Perhaps those other states that wouldn’t press charges against a famous actor just value the money that a movie production brings in more than the life of any person. The entertainment industry as a whole gets by with a lot of shady shit that simply would not fly in any other industry. And all because of the money it brings in. California is probably the worst transgressor of this. There is billions of dollars riding on looking the other way in Hollywood. And that’s NOT a political statement - that’s just a lot of cold hard cash talking.
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Why spout off something that you have absolutely zero knowledge about? Like what purpose does that serve?
I’m tired of hearing about this. Start the fucking trial already.
I come to this website to take a shit
Is there a reason they had a gun loaded with actual bullets or even actual bullets on the set? Isn’t like everything in movies done with blanks?
It’s my understanding the person in charge of making sure weapons were loaded with blanks had issues with using real rounds in the past.
Who is this person and why isn’t he charged / in jail?
It’s armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed, and she has been charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter, and tampering with evidence. The trial starts next month and she could face up to three years in prison if convicted.
Just 3 years? That seems really lenient.
She also tried to hand off her coke to another crew member when the cops showed up.
The crew were target shooting with the weapon in their off time. They were also drinking and using cocaine. Someone missed the live round.
I think it was something about it being used for target practice off set IIRC.
You’re supposed to check the chamber that’s how guns work you empty them and you look at them and you look at them and empty them again and that’s what happens and the chamber it’s not in the clip it’s in the chamber that’s where the bullet is that’s why you shoot it
It’s US, live bullets are just everywhere, real guns are everywhere (in Europe prop guns use different caliber, you can’t use them with live ammo). Movie sets are no exception.
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You still have feet? I’ve got only my thumbs left.
He hired the cheapest firearms manager, tolerated crew playing with real bullets, and so when he’s handed a loaded gun, it’s a direct result of his own mistakes.
Lowest bidder aside, how is this clearly not the armorer’s fault front and center? It was her responsibility to handle the set props. What Baldwin paid them is irrelevant to what she claimed she could provide and was obligated to provide under contract.
She is literally the one to (a) claim the firearm was safe, but (b) load it with live ammunition.
???
Work in the industry, doc side but this is pretty basic producer stuff. This is 100% on the armorer and the only reason they keep trying to charge Baldwin is the legal grey area of the state they filmed in. Had this happened in a state with more production (Georgia, Louisiana, California) there would be a more direct way for prosecutors to go after the correct person. Georgia and California specifically has legal precedent from deaths on set like this.
One of the reasons credits are so long is because we hire people to maintain a safe set - think of it like a foreman for safe worksite in construction (which we also hire often). We hire a ton of people for safety from actual police to medics and rescue personnel.
Hiring an armorer is SPECIFICALLY to avoid situations like this. Because the production company is like “hey you know what? I don’t think me, some producer knows how to use a gun safely, I should hire someone who’s certified to do that.” It’s not some token job, they’re supposed to be trained on how to properly load the powder of the blank rounds, how to mark and flag hot guns and dead props, and pretty fucking much rule #1A is never bring live ammo anywhere near your set.
Baldwin should not be held criminally liable and any half decent entertainment lawyer will settle that. Now civil liability, that’s certainly more realistic. But even then it should be the production LLC not any 1 person.
In your experience, have you ever seen the responsibility of set prop safety fall on the producer and not be delegated to someone else? Based on what you write here, I assume not which would confirm my initial belief.
This is 100% on the armorer
… Except for one other guy taking a gun he knew nothing about, pointing it at a person and pulling the trigger.
No, I think they are both guilty. Obviously not equally.
If the common judicial practice is different - then maybe some day there’ll be a new precedent.
Sure, it’s a responsible viewpoint to assume that any gun is loaded and dangerous, even until the moment you yourself have cleared it… but the case is lacking mens rea, because who in their right mind would put a hot gun as a prop on a film set? While Baldwin killed Hutchins, I find it hard to draw any criminal negligence from it.
While Baldwin killed Hutchins, I find it hard to draw any criminal negligence from it.
There’s one nuance there, they weren’t filming or something. They were playing with that gun. While the armorer is to blame, if they’d show a little respect, one person would be alive.
They weren’t playing. They were blocking a scene.
https://lemmy.zip/comment/6483250 - same thing if you are waving a gun as a means of expression
Too bad that’s not what happened. What do you get out of making up stories like this?
An article I read right after this happened (which very well could have been a hit piece) said she (the armorer) was in her early 20s and would fuck around and go shooting with the prop guns when filming wasn’t happening. So… kind of. Yes
Sounds like there’s lots of blame to go around
She’s guilty, he probably has some liability being the producer.
He was far from the only producer. Quite frankly I doubt very much he did any real work besides acting.
The liability belongs to the company as a whole, absent some slam dunk of a memo where Baldwin personally said “Hire this lady, she’s my cousin’s kid, also I personally know she falsified her credentials but fuck it.”
It’s essentially a question of “who’s in charge around here and whose ass will be on the line?” Nearest example I can think of is if your boss tells you to deliver something and you get into a car accident, your work covers you with their insurance (USA!)
Even more concisely summed up with an incredibly apropos phrase, “if you give a monkey a gun, you don’t get to blame the monkey when someone gets shot.”
It is, but groveling, weak sycophants hate Baldwin for mocking their traitor god.
One of the biggest rules of gun safety is treat every gun as if it’s loaded even when as far as you know it isn’t. Regardless of how you think the ratio of culpability falls or who should be held legally accountable, he is at least partially responsible because he was the person holding the gun and aiming it at someone.
That’s rule number one on the shooting range, It’s not quite the same in film or on stage.
In those cases, actors have to trust their prop master or armorer.
Those are the people specifically hired to make sure the gun or the bullets are fake.
Baldwin was handed a gun, and specifically told that it was cold. The person handing it over even called out for the entire set that it was a cold weapon. The director then immediately called places. Because that’s how it works.
But the gun was not cold.
Now, the person whose job it was to maintain those weapons was incompetent. Baldwin didn’t hire her, he didn’t hire anyone. He was one of 10 producers and mostly handled fundraising and script changes.
But he made fun of Trump a few times, and was involved in a gun death in a Trump friendly area. In California the armorer would be facing these charges, and would have faced them as soon as the initial investigation was over, not several years later.
Baldwin was handed a gun, and specifically told that it was cold.
Source please? Everywhere I’ve read about this it was said that he took a gun to play with it. Not a part of any procedure.
Of course if it was like what you are describing, then I’m wrong.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_shooting_incident
Not sure where you got your series of events from
The trio behind the monitor began repositioning the camera to remove a shadow, and Baldwin began explaining to the crew how he planned to draw the firearm.[10] He said, “So, I guess I’m gonna take this out, pull it, and go, ‘Bang!’”[12] When he removed it from the holster, the revolver discharged a single time. Baldwin denied pulling the trigger of the gun, while ABC News described a later FBI report stating that the gun could only fire if the trigger was pulled.[41][42] Halls was quoted by his attorney Lisa Torraco as saying that Baldwin did not pull the trigger, and that Baldwin’s finger was never within the trigger guard during the incident.[43] When the gun fired, the projectile traveled towards the three behind the monitor. It struck Hutchins in the chest, traveled through her body, and then hit Souza in the shoulder.[11][37][44] Script supervisor Mamie Mitchell called 9-1-1 at 1:46 p.m. PT and emergency crews appeared three minutes later.[12] Footage of the incident was not recorded.[34]
My memory changed it a bit, but thanks for your link, as the quoted part is what I was trying to remember.
Did you miss the part a bit earlier where it said he was handed a gun and told it was cold?
The fact that he was asking questions of the director about how he was going to draw and “fire” the gun is pointless, because everyone on set thought it was cold.
According to a search warrant, the guns were briefly checked by armorer Gutierrez-Reed, before assistant director Halls took the Pietta revolver from the prop cart and handed it to Baldwin.[38][39] In a subsequent affidavit, Halls said the safety protocol regarding this firearm was such that Halls would open the loading gate of the revolver and rotate the cylinder to expose the chambers so he could inspect them himself. According to the affidavit, Halls said he did not check all cylinder chambers, but he recalled seeing three rounds in the cylinder at the time. (After the shooting, Halls said in the affidavit, Gutierrez-Reed retrieved the weapon and opened it, and Halls said that he saw four rounds which were plainly blanks, and one which could have been the remaining shell of a discharged live round.)[40] In the warrant, it is further stated that Halls announced the term “cold gun”, meaning that it was empty.[38] Halls’s lawyer, Lisa Torraco, later sought to assert that he did not take the gun off the cart and hand it to Baldwin as reported, but when pressed by a reporter to be clear, she refused to repeat that assertion.[41]
The conservative media outlets have been spreading bullshit about this. They hate Baldwin for making fun of donnie diapers.
Rule 1 of gun safety, check the gun you’re handed for any ammunition.
What else needs to be said?
Everything else is its own issue to be dealt with.
He was given a firearm, did not do HIS due dilligence by checking the gun. He killed a fucking human being. . End of story
Can’t really expect that any more than you expect that Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone personally made sure the paint buckets he swung at Joe Pesci were actually empty. It’s just not how it works.
It’s up to the props people, in this case the armorer.
Youre forgetting the 50 year age difference, I dont expect anyone under the age of 15 to be responsible for setting anything up on a set. It takes 10 seconds to check a gun for blanks vs bullets. Frankly anyone who handles a gun anywhere be it real or have which blanks should know the difference and should check.
This particular model you could not see any bullets so how hard would it be to open the cover and rotate the cylinder 6 times?
Blanks are just as dangerous as real bullets just at different ranges.
Alec has been around guns for how long? And didnt learn basic gun safety?
Íve had to follow safety rules in every job ive been on. Ive uses just about every tool including both air and propane nail guns and the first rule is dont point it at anything tou dont plan on nailing and that has safety to prevent it from firing if not against an object.
So why are actors any different? They get paid a fuckload more then me and dont have to follow safety and often make others do
dangerous shitstunts and dont get salaries or recognition the actors do.I fell asleep. Prop people can handle it
I honestly would not expect a bunch of Californian actors to know that. You’re often not dealing with a crowd of people who grew up hunting or at the range. You’re dealing with people who hire an armorer to bring that expertise to the set.
99% of people who incessantly spout out Da Rules on the Internet have never held a gun in their life, and would be more likely to ND than the average youtube shorts guntuber
Guns arent hard to learn , watch forgotten weapons.
I grew up in fscking Moscow and have never shot one live round, but I know the same rules (because they apply for anything remotely similar, including toy pneumatic guns with which you can leave someone without an eye, construction guns, toy bows and crossbows …).
The armorer is 100% guilty, but that’s not the same as saying that 100% of guilt is on the armorer.
The rules of firearm safety apply when your buddy is showing off his new canik, not when you’re a professional on a movie set. A million other actors have ignored those rules on a million other sets, and it’s typically perfectly safe because the armorers know what they’re doing, and the crew isn’t bringing live rounds on set.
Then the actors shoulnt handle guns
I mean… by this metric Michael Massee should have done time for shooting Brandon Lee during the filming of The Crow.
I thought they were using blanks with Brandon Lee, but there was something with either the distance that it was fired or something messed up with the gun which became a projectile and fatally shot him? The two instances do seem similar but my memory of the events surrounding Brandon Lee’s death was that the blame fell on the prop department and unless the actors were experts, they wouldn’t have known the risk involved.
There’s two types of fake rounds they were using: one that had the bullet but no gunpowder or primer (to look like a realistic bullet in close-ups, since it was a revolver) and the opposite with no bullet but with powder and primer, for scenes with shooting.
They didn’t do the first ones properly and left the primers on. This round was fired, which set off the cap and fired the bullet with just enough force for it to get stuck in the barrel (which is similar diameter as the bullet for rifling). Then, the same gun was loaded with a blank round to use in a scene. It was aimed at Brandon Lee and fired, the force of the powder was enough to dislodge the bullet from the barrel and hit Brandon fatally.
With this particular issue, you can’t just look at the bullets to tell if it’s safe (plus half of the fake rounds looked like real ones anyways), you need to also clear the barrel.
No, there was a rare accident with one blank pushing out a piece of the previous blank stuck or something.
Yeah, the director and editors are gonna love you making sure your props are cleared every single shoot.
“Sure, we’re 15% over budget and two weeks behind schedule, time is tight as hell, but I have to check this firearm that the armorer already verified is cold just in case we’re the third ever fatal ND on a movie set”
If he had, rust would have been in theatres last year…
He is the producer.
Hi hired her. He tolerated crew using real bullets on set for playing target practice during down time.
The boss created unsafe conditions, and killed his employee through negligence.
I find that to be a pretty big leap. When she took the role of armorer she assumed all responsibility on set to ensure the safety of the crew, which was the entire point in Baldwin hiring someone to that position in the first place. Her gross negligence if not outright fraud is a result of her own actions and nobody else.
At most I’d give 20% responsibility to Baldwin for not examining her background more closely.
I completely agree with you that technically the armorer is at fault traditionally in these types of situations and a jury may in fact find that to be true in the eyes of the law eventually, but I find it interesting that in this case the armorer was a younger attractive female on a rough n tumble set and I can only assume there was pressure on her from the other people there shooting if not Baldwin himself to go shooting. Hell she may not have even known the guns were used but that’s not really an excuse.
What is a meditating factor is what Baldwin said, told her and ordered her to do. Remember he’s her boss. I’m assuming there’s evidence he told her to do blah. If so imo he deserves more than 20%.
The way I see it, if your responsibility is the safety of firearms and someone tells you to violate that responsibility, that reflects a lot on you and you’re not cut for the job. If there is a contradiction between what the boss tells you and that which you’re held liable for, you better choose wisely. You’re hired for this role specifically when death is on the line no less.
I would still say Baldwin is at fault since he wasn’t doing what he could to ensure safety on the set with real guns and live ammunition. The armorer fucked up 100% for sure, but they shouldn’t be the first and last line for following safety policies and SOPs - anybody in a leadership or managerial role should also be enforcing it.
I find it highly unlikely that a film producer is going around checking weapon props on the vast, vast majority of Hollywood sets. I would be shocked if that ever happens.
People were literally walking off set before the shooting happened because of this exact safety issue. Baldwin knew about the safety issue. He ignored it.
He’s negligent for not firing the negligent armorer the moment he undoubtedly heard about there being live ammo on set.
He doesn’t need to check them, but he can certainly go “hey, make sure we’re following safety protocols!” so others can actually do that work - or at least, Baldwin can cover himself by saying he was trying to follow safety protocol.
You say it’s the armorer’s fault (which it is), but Baldwin still could’ve done more to ensure safety on his end without checking every weapon prop like you said. Ask yourself: if the people in charge don’t follow policy and procedure, do you think the people below them would?
if the people in charge don’t follow policy and procedure
What policy/procedure did Baldwin not follow exactly?
I would hate to work under you. I hope you’re not in charge of anything OSHA related.
Ok. I’d hate to have employees who need convenient scapegoats to deflect their basic job responsibilities for which they were, you know, hired to perform.
Why do you think the grand jury, which certainly has seen more evidence than you, felt differently?
The Grand Jury is subject to a narrow perspective of evidence framed solely by the Prosecutors. The bar is pretty low.
If Grand Juries were fullproof, why even proceed to a trial…?
And it’s quite possible I’m missing something, sure. I don’t really have a horse in this race either way.
A grand jury found him guilty! I guess that settles it!
Maybe you shouldn’t comment on things that you don’t know the first thing about
A grand jury will in a ham sandwich
Baldwin was one of 10 producers and was not the hiring director. He, in fact, hire her.
I’ve heard that there were live fire practices on set, but could never back that up.
What I did find the last time this came up was a write-up about how there were reloads intermixed with the dummy rounds, re-loads that had been used on a completely different film shoot, where the actors of that film were walked tough some target practice with live rounds, so that they would better understand how a gun firing live rounds would kick.
Then a coffee can full of mixed live and dummy rounds ended up kicking around for a couple of years before being sent out to the Rust filming location, and the armorer didn’t know how to check the bullets. Or didn’t know that she had to. She was told that everything sent was a dummy round.
There were a bunch of live rounds found mixed into props, including Baldwin’s ammo belt.
All of them looked like the standard dummy round.
real bullets. . .
playing . . .That’s fucked up.
I find it very hard to understand the attitudes some people have towards firearms.
The thing is, he’s not the one who hired her.
He was one of 10 listed producers on that film, and was not the hiring director.
He’s the one who just took a gun laying nearby (without asking anyone about it being normal), jokingly pointed it at a person and squeezed the trigger.
People defending him seem to think that “criminal stupidity” is not a thing.
This is not accurate. At.all. it’s really funny how much stuff gets repeated online without any evidence. Social media is just one big game of telephone
https://lemmy.zip/comment/6483250 - I meant this.
You are contradicting your own comment.
Put some detail to explain your position, saying that alone is worth nothing.
I would love to see a source on that story, because it sounds super made up
The first article I’ve read on the event. I don’t remember (EDIT: where I’ve seen) it and I won’t provide you with the source.
EDIT2: https://lemmy.zip/comment/6483250 - meant that.
Where exactly in that quote does it say he took a gun laying nearby without asking anyone about it, jokingly pointed it at a person, and squeezed the trigger? Literally none of what you said happened according to that quote. Do you wanna maybe delete the misinformation in your comments?
Are you saying that quote is where you got what you said from? Because it doesn’t say anything like what you said
You’re a liar. You made it up.
I made up the quote? Go on with your life that same way, it’s gonna be amusing.
Thats not what happened at all. He was handed a gun and told it was safe.
Um no. That’s a blatant lie.
He was handed a gun, and told it was cold.
According to a search warrant, the guns were briefly checked by armorer Gutierrez-Reed, before assistant director Halls took the Pietta revolver from the prop cart and handed it to Baldwin.[38][39] In a subsequent affidavit, Halls said the safety protocol regarding this firearm was such that Halls would open the loading gate of the revolver and rotate the cylinder to expose the chambers so he could inspect them himself. According to the affidavit, Halls said he did not check all cylinder chambers, but he recalled seeing three rounds in the cylinder at the time. (After the shooting, Halls said in the affidavit, Gutierrez-Reed retrieved the weapon and opened it, and Halls said that he saw four rounds which were plainly blanks, and one which could have been the remaining shell of a discharged live round.)[40] In the warrant, it is further stated that Halls announced the term “cold gun”, meaning that it was empty.[38] Halls’s lawyer, Lisa Torraco, later sought to assert that he did not take the gun off the cart and hand it to Baldwin as reported, but when pressed by a reporter to be clear, she refused to repeat that assertion.[41]
People attacking him just make shit up left and right.
Maybe we do, it’s confusing that when somebody points a gun at another person which he hasn’t personally checked and pretends that somebody had to check it instead of him and that absolves him, some people think he’s right.
So, you admit you’re just making shit up to paint Baldwin in a worse light?
You also admit you have no fucking clue how stage and film work?
Because pointing a gun at someone for a film is allowed, because the production hires actual experts who are legally responsible for making sure that any weapon handed to an actor is safe. The armorer in this case was incompetent, and got the job because her father was a damn fine armorer and had connections.
Do note, that while Baldwin was a producer on the film, he was one of 10 producers, and never handled hiring. His main duties were fundraising and minor script changes.
I started with recalling that the accident happened when he was waving the gun for expressiveness. Then my memory went off track, like it often happens, because the general idea of somebody using a real weapon for expressiveness for me is very irresponsible.
That core part turns out to still be correct. The rest not.
Also you are making it sound as if having a real shooting gun on a set at all was so bloody necessary and unavoidable that it doesn’t make sense to teach people holding it basic rules.
waving the gun for expressiveness
See, that’s the first place your memory was wrong. Because that core part is in fact wrong.
He was rehearsing a scene with the director. Asking questions about where to stand and how to draw and aim the gun.
The real gun on set was because it would usually be loaded with blanks.
Period accurate guns didn’t have smokeless powder. So the blanks would be loaded with that same powder.
You also want a real gun for closeup work. There was not supposed to be any live ammo on set, so it should have been safe.
Unfortunately, the armorer was incompetent, and the prop supplier sent dummy rounds that had been co-mingled with live rounds that were produced for a previous film.
Do you know his involvement in her being hired? Being a producer can mean anything from total involvement to it just being a name on paper.
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If he’s not lying about not pulling the trigger, then he, or the firearms manager, also bought a dangerously cheap gun.
The whole thing was a cascading failure, imho, with Baldwin at the end of it, making him no less culpable than anyone before him. Ultimately, “I didn’t know the gun was loaded” is never an excuse.
It wasn’t necessarily cheap. It was just a double action revolver.
All of the downvotes are from right wingers brigading.
All that is why he is civilly liable for her wrongful death.
The reason he is criminally liable is because, without bothering to check that the weapon was safe, he elected to point it at a woman and pull the trigger…
If he had blown through a stop sign without bothering to check that the crossroad had been closed, he would be criminally liable for the damages he caused. The fact that cameras were rolling when he did it would not excuse him of his dangerous act.
He failed to take the basic safety precautions expected of anyone handling a firearm, and he failed to introduce alternative measures for achieving the same degree of safety.
And then tried to blame any and everyone but himself afterwards.
The brigading on the comments on this story is quite telling. Why do conservatives love Alec Baldwin so much? He’s a Democrat.
I am a lefty and I think it is a shame he gets indicted for this. The gun wasnt his responsibility and it was an accident.
I respectfully disagree. If you touch a gun, you are responsible. If you mishandle a gun, you are responsible. If the gun fires while in your hand, you are responsible. That’s firearms 101.
Unless of course, you’re on a movie set and the armorer has called it a cold gun and pointing it towards people is part of the movie.
Then it might be the fault of the person who knowingly co-mingled live and blank ammo in gross disregard for any kind of safety procedures.
Yes if you are handling a firearm, you have a responsibility to know safety procedures. But in film, obviously you have different familiarity levels with weapon handling. That’s why you hire an armorer who enforces safety procedures. So non-shooter actors handle prop weapons with blanks.
Now, arguably as a co-producer Alec may have had some culpability in hiring an unqualified armorer? Somehow I doubt he was heavily involved in those kind of nitty gritty hiring decisions. Seems significantly more plausible that those decisions were made by the actual producers who work for a living and not the a-lister who gets titled co-producer for SAGAFTRA billing purposes…
Call me crazy, I know.
All valid points and I agree. But that gun didn’t point itself at another person. And it sure didn’t pull its own trigger.
Didn’t he shoot a black guy?
That was part of the script, in the first act
Why not use digital squibs? Oh yeah, you don’t get to shoot someone
In the face.
It’s hard to squib the face, which is where he shot her.
I too confuse basic anatomy such as face and stomach. There’s hope for us yet!
This was homicide IMO, on the part of whichever dipshit brought live rounds onto the set Baldwin should still get manslaughter for pointing a gun at someone
If simply pointing a gun at someone, even on a movie set, is manslaughter then we are in trouble.
Yes. Accidentally killing someone is manslaughter. That is what that crime means.
But not just pointing…
He didn’t just point though. If he just pointed nobody would be dead.
He pointed and pulled the trigger.
The comment I replied to didn’t make that distinction.
Trump should be hanged for treason.
What?
It is somewhat ironic that a vocal antigunner ended up having a larger negligent body count than 99.99999% of US gun owners.
Sweet! You get to get down voted twice as much!
damb this guy can downvote
It is somewhat ironic that a vocal antigunner ended up having a larger negligent body count than 99.99999% of US gun owners.
we all know this guy is full of shit but if anyone was wondering how full:
US had 549 unintentional deaths by firearm in 2021
several countries’ annual gun death tolls don’t even exceed America’s accidental gun death toll in a single year, including Australia, Japan, England, Spain, and Switzerland. source (emphasis mine)
fuck you for capitalizing off this tragedy to spew bile and deceit to make yourself feel good
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Edit: Lemmy doesn’t support LaTex
I just want to objectively point out that OPs math is fairly accurate.
What Percentage of Americans Own Guns? 40%, or approximately more than 82,000,000 Americans own guns.
So, approximately 0.0006695% of gun owners experienced a negligent discharge that resulted in death.
i’m not contesting this fucker’s math i’m contesting that they are full of shit for defending a system of violence <3
you’re on thin ice as well dude
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, if you’re holding a weapon it is your responsibility to know if that weapon is live, I don’t care who hands it to you or under what context. Children learn this in rifle safety.
Does the armorer share responsibility? Definitely. But you can’t just say “someone else got hired to do that so Baldwin is off the hook.” Even pointing a gun around, live ammo or not, with the hammer cocked is plainly asinine and unsafe behavior. All Baldwin needed to do was take 5 seconds to open the chamber and look at the bullets to prevent someone losing their life, if that’s not negligence then what exactly is?
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, the rules of firearm safety apply in common situations, not on professional movie sets. I’m reminded of a video of a parked car causing a massive pile up in a bicycle race, because even though it wasn’t moving, the people in the middle of the pack can’t see past the cyclists in front of them, and can’t dodge the car in time. That post got comment after comment about how stupid the cyclists were, how you should always be prepared to stop at a moment’s notice, how you should never cycle anywhere without at least six miles of visibility, but the thing is, in bicycle races, common sense doesn’t apply. The roads are supposed to be clear because cyclists aren’t going to be able to see far enough ahead of them to properly react to obstacles, because that’s what bicycle races are like.
Similarly, when you’re at your friend’s house and he’s showing off his new carbine, you absolutely treat it like they’re a moron who left it chambered, and even after you make sure it’s clear, you don’t put your finger on the trigger and you don’t point it at anyone. This isn’t because it might still shoot, it’s because you need to practice that muscle memory in case your idiot friend doesn’t clear it next time. But when you’re on a movie set, the norm switches. You’re working with professionals, and when they tell you it’s cold, it’s supposed to be safe to assume that it is in fact cold. A million other actors have made that assumption a million times each, and it’s been a safe assumption virtually every time. The people at fault when the gun isn’t cold aren’t the actors who trusted the professionals, it’s the professionals who brought live ammo to a movie set.
I’d flip the share of liability, personally. The primary liable party is the armorer since it’s their actual job to handle these things. But Baldwin shares in liability IMO because of the negligence of not verifying the state of the firearm. Especially after he knew others had used it for firing real rounds.
The whole thing is just sloppy as hell and highlights to me why regulations need to be in place, or movies need to let go of the gun firing bullshit. Every god damned thing is done in CG now, they can’t afford muzzle flash suddenly?
Why would you point a gun, prop or otherwise, blanks or otherwise, at the cinematographer when cameras aren’t rolling?
it’s called a camera test.
Baldwin, the cinematographer and the director were all working through blocking (the movements needed for when the camera would be actually rolling).
The camera was in position, and the cinematographer and director were both looking through the monitors to adjust lighting and such.
This is all very standard stuff, and if one of the dummy rounds hadn’t actually been a reload of live ammo, it would have remained standard.
This talks about how the live ammo made it onto the set.
https://variety.com/2021/film/news/rust-investigators-live-rounds-alec-baldwin-1235122384/
Baldwin could have looked at the logos on the bullets, seen the Starline Brass, and assumed that they were all dummy rounds. Only 5 of the 6 were.
Who the hell knows. He claims he was rehearsing the scene, which seems plausible. The scene being filmed would have resulted in the same injury and death, so cameras rolling doesn’t seem to be an important aspect.
A better questions would be why TF the industry as a whole allows people in the path of the barrel, why they insist on using firearms with blanks, and why acting staff aren’t given training on any weapon they will handle so they know how to properly inspect them.
Yeah I do agree it is primarily her fault (though why she was hired in the first place is a whole other thing, I suspect Baldwin had little to do with that anyway though). I just think he needs to take his part of the blame and not just be let off because he’s a celebrity boy.
As both the one holding the gun and the one who had a say in hiring the armorer Baldwin absolutely deserves the majority of the blame.
Core military leadership lesson: you can delegate authority, but it is impossible to delegate responsibility.
So if a stuntman dies on set the producer should be prosecuted because they hired the stunt coordinator?
This is not my area of expertise, but I’d guess that there is a difference between responsibility and criminal responsibility.
The producer could probably be sued in civil court.
