- 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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Hey I’ve seen that movie! Wait, it was a pickup truck in a parade and if I remember correctly, the driver got charged.
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.
Your friend hands you a gun and says it’s not loaded, should you check
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?
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.
Yeah, just this morning I walked outside and tripped on a shotgun. Damn near lost my left foot.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
In that single year, to be clear
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
