- cross-posted to:
- moviesandtv@lemm.ee
- cross-posted to:
- moviesandtv@lemm.ee
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.
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.
But you’re right, and the management who kept ignoring problems is going to be tried here. It just so happens that the producer was also an actor and happened to be the one given a bad prop. Alec was the manager of everyone: he hired people, and decided they were doing a good enough job. After employees complained about safety problems, he ignored them. After people QUIT over those safety problems, he continued ignoring them. Alec the producer is the one on trial, not Alec the actor.
Thank you! I feel like I’ve never been able to get the full story!
Baldwin was in charge. He wasn’t just an Actor. He took several actions that made the set less safe that day.
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 .
There are 14 producers on this movie, and bdwin was not the executive producer according to IMDB. None of the other producers who were actually most likely responsible for those decisions are facing charges. It’s simply because Baldwin is an opponent of trump and the prosecutor wants to gain political influence and notoriety.
Exactly. If everyone involved was on trial, it might be reasonable. They happened to pick the guy Donnie hates.
He was pointing the gun at someone. That should never happen.
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.
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?
You would never do this even if there were blanks in the gun. Blanks can kill at point blank.
There weren’t supposed to be any ammo capable of fire. The round was even a fucking reload of a dummy casing that went untested because the armorer was an incompetent idiot who got someone killed.
Who was hired by Baldwin, and who complained to Baldwin that he wasn’t letting her do her job. She was unqualified and she still identified the dangerous situation. The biggest problem for her was not resigning in protest.
It’s amazing that people who are oblivious to the facts have such strong opinions defending a guy who shot and killed someone.
I think any reasoning person would say the answer is “yes”. Ultimately you are responsible for your own actions.
Think about it like this, remove the context of this being a movie. Your friend hands you a gun and says it’s not loaded, should you check before firing the gun at someone? Your friend hands you a bucket of “not acid” and tells you to throw it on someone. Do you check that it’s really not acid first?
It seems like the suggestion is that the film set is removing these base line responsibilities for our own actions and I don’t think that’s very reasonable.
There’s a specific reason the actors aren’t supposed to check the gun. They cannot do anything that might fuck with a prop and fucking kill someone. They are to only use the weapon they’ve been given as instructed. It’s the job of the master armorer to ensure that all weapons, prop or otherwise, are properly handled.
This is protocol so it’s clear who’s at fault when an incident like this happens because they can just trace chain of custody. If Baldwin had checked the gun or handled it in any way other than instructed, he would be liable.
By that logic, if someone drives a car with poor brakes and those defective brakes fail causing an accident, the driver is at fault.
Hey I’ve seen that movie! Wait, it was a pickup truck in a parade and if I remember correctly, the driver got charged.
In a commercial situation like a monster truck exhibition, there is president that the operator can be held liable for foreseeable mechanical failure that injures people.
This wasn’t a kid playing with his mom’s gun. It was a commercial production.
Say you’re an actor, and I hand you a revolver, assuring you that it is not loaded. The scene it’s involved in requires that the hammer is already pulled back (as the character in question is threatening someone at gunpoint).
Should you, the actor, check the chamber? With the hammer back and the cylinder locked, doing this would require a complex maneuver of blocking the hammer with your finger, PULLING THE TRIGGER, and then rotating the cylinder to look at the one that was chambered - then rotating it back, and re-cocking it.
Now imagine, being an actor that is a novice with revolvers, you mix up which spot you’re meant to block with your finger. If, as you suggest, there is any chance at all that there’s a live round in the chamber, aren’t you introducing further risk with this maneuver?
Yes, you should that’s like the number one rule of handling actual firearms.
I feel like we are minimizing the fact they were using actual fully functional fire arms on a set which is absolutely not normal.
Sounds like a great argument for the actor first receiving a gun where the hammer is not pulled back.
If you get the gun in a state where safety checks cannot be done safely, someone has fucked up.
It’s far better for the actor to know how to cock a hammer, have them go through the safety checks to make sure everything checks out, and then cock the hammer.
Basic gun safety involves handling guns as if they were loaded, so a gun should only be passed to someone without the hammer cocked and also with the safety on, because the gun will be assumed to be loaded by whoever receives it, and handing someone a gun that’s loaded with the hammer cocked is a monumentally stupid idea.
Is your friend a professional armorer whose job it is to keep everyone involved safe?
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.
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Why spout off something that you have absolutely zero knowledge about? Like what purpose does that serve?