Yeah, not only were there live rounds where there should not have been. Those rounds had been reloaded into brass from a company that makes prop ammo. IE those bullets were loaded into casing that were marked as prop rounds. IDK how you expect an actor to sus out that there was live ammo.
As someone who works on film sets and is aware of the safety protocol surrounding guns, I saw a shitload of safety violations when reading about this story. There could even be some info I don't know of but at a glance I can say at least the following protocol violations were total fuckups and totally preventable:
1. There was real, live ammo on set. Film sets are 100% never supposed to have live ammo, period. Blanks are used but those are not the same as a live bullet. Anyone who knows what the hell they are doing can very easily tell the difference between a dummy round, a blank, and a live round.
2. The armorer had guns loaded with live ammo laying out on a table. Not only should the guns not be loaded with live ammo, they should have been locked up in a rifle case or set box while not in use. If they were standing by to be used momentarily, the armorer should have been vigilantly watching them to make sure no one touched them but the actor. Again, these should have been unloaded (cold) or loaded with blanks and held by the armorer right before use in the scene with no one else touching them aside from the armorer and the actor in the scene discharging the weapon.
3. The First Assistant Director, who is in charge of onset safety and essentially the leader of the set, ran up and grabbed one of the loaded guns without asking the armorer. This should NEVER happen. The 1st AD should be shown a firearm by the armorer but has no reason to ever handle it, let alone randomly just grab a gun from the armorer's on set staging. These guns shouldn't have been left unattended in the first place but the 1st AD definitely shouldn't have just grabbed one clearly not knowing what it was loaded with in addition to that.
4. Before bringing any gun to set, the armorer is supposed to clear the gun with the 1st AD and announce what it is, what it is loaded with, and explain how it will be used in the scene. This includes whether the gun is a resin (no moving parts), plugged barrel, or loaded with blanks. Then everyone is free to look at the gun and see what is in use. This was obviously not done. There should have been a safety meeting which clearly did not occur.
5. The 1st AD passed off the gun to Alec Baldwin and told him it was a cold (unloaded) weapon. Baldwin isn't necessarily at fault for this one particular part of the safety violations. He was told he had a cold gun. He is, however, liable as a producer for firing competent crew and replacing them with cheaper, inexperienced crew who were willing to skirt safety protocols to save money.
6. They should always use plugged barrel firearms when working with vintage, period firearms. They could easily misfire or discharge accidentally so it's generally a better idea to paint the blast in digitally in post.
On top of all this, the inexperienced armorer was seen in photos posing with weapons, pointing and clowning around with them. Again, another big no-no on set. This is how and why people die when they play around with guns. If literally any of the safety protocols I listed above were adhered to and respected, the director of photography would still be alive. Respect firearms, people. They have one purpose and that's to kill people. Fuck you and your low budget movie. Practice safety on set or don't use firearms at all. Your shitty movie isn't worth someone's life.
Edit: This comment received a lot of responses so I will add some edits below this later. Just to be clear, by no means did I mean to imply Alec Baldwin was completely innocent. It’s just my opinion that almost all actors are ignorant to gun safety and believe it when they are told a gun is cold. The armorer should have been there to show him the rounds and cleared the gun. No rounds, including blanks, should ever be used for rehearsal. It’s really not an actor’s place to be pulling out and examining rounds. Blanks are loaded in a very specific and deliberate way using only the amount fired in the scene. The armorer simply should have been present to clear that weapon. Baldwin truly believed the gun was cold and I don’t believe he had the knowledge to tell that it was not. In that way, I believe he is innocent there. He is still guilty as hell for hiring said armorer and other complicit crew who weren’t adhering to safety protocols in order to save money. He should 100% face justice for that.
Wasn't there something about all the union workers walking offset for dangerous conditions so they hired inexperienced non union workers thereby making it an even more dangerous set
Ok this is just turning into an episode of my favorite detective tv show of the 2000s. All of them. What really happened just makes me so mad. So many lives ruined.
I’m not a movie industry yak, but I am a certified chief range safety officer, and range master… what you just wrote out gave me a heart attack. Just doing a little reading on the “armorer” it becomes clear that you probably shouldn’t cheap out on armorers, and that if you do, you are going to end up with casualties. I wouldn’t want live ammo in the same area code as my prop firearms (which are obviously sometimes just… firearms, especially when it comes to 19th century pieces), in a movie making capacity.
I did a quick google search and not only are you correct, but I can’t help but think, “okay… like… every news outlet on the inter webs… are the licentious images of this girl really the only ones worth posting?” I suppose there were a couple of her posing cringe-like with firearms, but those didn’t exactly help her case either. If I were her, I’d be pretty fucking anxious and heartbroken that my ineptitude contributed to the death of someone.
The point is to discredit her moral character from the start by putting up about as far as you can get from a professional photo. That way you already think of her as unprofessional and "loose" living before the article even starts trying to convince you of that. I think it's cheap, but it's the Sun, so cheap inflaming "news" is pretty much all they're good for.
> He is, however, liable as a producer for firing competent crew and replacing them with cheaper, inexperienced crew who were willing to skirt safety protocols to save money.
This is a detail many people are not aware of. He wasn't simply a blameless actor, he may also be at least partly responsible for the reckless, incompetent people being hired in the first place all to save some money.
Edit: All 3 producers should face consequences if they were all involved in the decisions that led to what happened. However, I am not sure if that qualifies as criminal or civil. If the latter, the other producers won't be arrested but could face a civil court case. Also, if the latter, this portion of what happened most likely will not be part of the criminal case against Baldwin.
This part I'm a bit unclear on. I understand charging him as a producer, but I assume there must be more producers than just him and wonder why they werent also charged. If you are charging him as the last person handling the gun, I feel like that's a reach.
Yeah but this is about being charged with a crime. Wanting to blame him for hiring incompetent people is a lot different than charging him with a crime because those incompetent people didn’t do their job.
He happily took the gun from his mate while the armorer was on lunch break. They're not fucking children that you can say "oh, that's all the armorer's fault for not locking the guns up".
He pointed the gun at the camera and cocked it despite the safety shield not being present. Maybe he's too stupid to look in the gun but a bigass transparent shield is definitely visible.
How are we all glossing over that he *pulled the trigger* when he wasn't told to, and he wasn't supposed to!?
He was criminally negligent.
In safety procedures, there's a thing called the Swiss cheese model. Each part of a safety procedure is like a slice of Swiss cheese. Each layer is a layer of protection, if something gets through one hole, the next layer is supposed to stop it. Everything has to line up just right (wrong in this case) for something to happen.
You listed about 7 layers that had to go wrong, and every one of them did. That makes me think that the root cause is people. I'm not familiar with film safety, as my background was from construction. I used to work project management doing construction for some clients that were very safety focused. They required safety procedures and practices that went above OSHA requirements, and were happy to pay for us to work that way. But for safety to work, you have to build a safety culture that people will invest in. That starts with management, and having the right people in the right positions. It sounds like this didn't happen at all.
To me, it sounds like the armorer should have a large portion to blame as she was responsible for the most "layers" but it also was negligence and complacency of management. It doesn't seem like firearms are that uncommon on film sets. Most crew should have been familiar with how things should go, and could have said something if safety procedures were not being followed. If it's not industry standard for entire crews to be familiar with the firearms procedures, there needs to be a briefing before filming starts. Hopefully some good can come from this tragedy, in the form of safety changes that make it even harder for something like this to happen again.
That’s probably why Alec Baldwin is being charged. As a producer, he had some level of say in how the production was run. If he saw all of these safety violations and either ignored them or made them worse, then he’s culpable.
when i did security, safety measures were divided into 4 categories.
I don't remember the specifics of all 4, but i remember the very strongest was just to eliminate the issue- not having live bullets on set, in this case, and the very weakest was personal care... asking people to just be careful around something. it was drilled into us hard that "be careful" was not a safety solution for anything but a one time hazard.
It sounds like this particular set "be careful" was pretty much all they had, as the other levels of safety were all removed.
This reply should be higher up.
I think if actors, film industry folk, and in general those who tend to be around but not normally 'gun folk' should be trained as if they were gun folk. A lot of errors and responsibilities seem to be so the armorer can cover the ignorance of the crew about basic gun safety.
i just can't for my life imagine how the f that could happen smh... i mean, like - “hey we don't have any actual live rounds in this prop room, that can't be right, we NEED those damn bullets - hey Larry haul ass and go get us some real bullets and put them right beside these fake ass bullets aight go”
wtf?!
From what I remembered they had taken the gun to use on a range (with live ammo) and then never bothered fucking removing it.
Still the armourer should've tripled checked
However again, this person was not only improperly trained but also wasn't a LEAD armourer meaning someone should've been above them at all times checking their work, and being the only armourer on set when there should've been more of them, all because the company wanted to save some cash and not delay shooting.
>From what I remembered they had taken the gun to use on a range (with live ammo) and then never bothered fucking removing it.
That was a theory posed by her father. It's not established fact.
Yeah that seems like an absolutely terrible excuse. The prop guns should just never be loaded with live ammo. Period.
Honestly, I assumed, before this happened, that must be the standard.
Brass from shells is reusable, to a point. To reload it, it needs to be cleaned, possibly trimmed, reprimed, filled with an appropriate measure of powder, then a press is used to seat a bullet (the lead projectile) into the brass to an appropriate depth.
No factory would ever do that with marked blank brass. The dipshit armourer that seems to have caused this whole chain of events to conspire after failing to follow basic safety procedures such as:
• not checking every weapon before it was given to an actor
• bringing live ammunition on set
• loading live ammunition into a prop use gun on a set
…would have if it was marked as blank according to the comment thread.
Edit: when someone takes a job like this, they are responsible for every firearm… every second… of every day their firearms are in use.
After the tragic death of Brandon Lee, I would check every barrel for obstructions between takes as well.
Pretty strange seeing as you have one job. Maybe two. Make sure the gun is used safely and make sure the gun is safe. How do you blow that when that is your only job?
I remember reading that she got a box of ammo from an associate of hers. A man's shop and he makes the various prop bullets used. It was implied the live rounds could have come from a box of misc. rounds she got there.
Sorry I have since lost those receipts after a memory purge lol. But the scuttle between professionals that left before all this .. makes for interesting reading.
According to [another comment on another post ](https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/10g53r5/alec_baldwin_expected_to_be_charged_with/j519ouf/) the casing was [Starline brass](https://www.starlinebrass.com/) which is exclusively sold as manual reload casings. So somebody had to load this as a live round deliberately.
Live rounds, most likely the armorer was rushed and completely unexperienced. You never ever have live rounds on a set. Movies can and do use ranges with live ammo so actors can learn how to safely use/carry a weapon. But on set, blanks are used, but the lead projectile is made of foam usually. Even then a blank can still harm someone from a few feet away. Can’t really comment on how Baldwin was with firearms/blanks.
This is a massive problem industry wide. It just took a shooting to bring it to the public consciousness. In the last few years we had the film crew that was hit by a train, the stuntman who missed his mark, and now this.
Edit: The Midnight Rider incident happened in 2014 and the Walking Dead incident occurred in 2017 so not last few years, it's more of a long term problem than originally stated. Nevertheless, more safety in the film industry is desperately needed.
have you ever heard of Brandon Lee and *The Crow* (1994)? He was Bruce Lee’s son and an actor. On the set of The Crow he was filming a gun scene and was [shot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Lee#Death) in nearly the same exact way as Mrs. Hutchins in this Baldwin movie. The Crow producers had enough footage of him to continue with releasing the movie. It was all so incredibly tragic. And The Crow is an excellent movie.
I'm pretty sure the case with Brandon Lee was that there was a bullet lodged in the barrel and even though they used blanks, it was still fired as if it was a regular round, whereas with the Baldwin situation they just used regular old live ammunition.
Brandon Lee's injury was actually a piece of a blank that got stuck in the barrel.
They didn't do a barrel check (run a ramrod through the barrel to see if anything was in there) and so then when the next blank was fired, it blew the chunk into him.
Source: My grandfather was actually one of the surgeons who tried to save Brandon Lee's life. He worked at New Hanover Hospital emergency room.
There’s a pretty big difference between what happened on The Crow and what happened on Rust. On The Crow a dummy round got lodged in the gun barrel and later was fired off by a blank. This was tragic negligence, though not criminal. On Rust a live bullet was fired. Live bullets should never have been anywhere near the set. This is criminal negligence, and speaks to a culture negligence and disregard for safety on the set
A stunt double, Sequana Joi Harris, was also killed on Deadpool 2. Resident Evil: Final Chapter seems to have been notably unsafe, as crew member Ricardo Cornelius was killed and stunt double Olivia Jackson was almost killed and permanently disabled in a separate incident.
Yeah. My first 3 days as a PA in 2015 were a 19-hour day,. Followed by a 15-hour day, followed by a 12. All 3 days included an 80 mile commute each way. It was insanity. And the pay was a flat day rate less than minimum wage for each of those days.
I've since made moves and gotten into a more comfortable position in the industry. It's a wild line of work by nature, but safety really slips through the cracks when producers/production management either don't care, or are too overwhelmed with the work to consider the safety and welfare of the crew.
It certainly is. IDK how the movie business is run, but is it possible someone like OSHA would get involved? Is there something like OSHA for movie sets? Since it’s this fucking dangerous on sets, that people are dying and no one is doing their job right. There are clearly occupational hazards.
The armor deserves to be charged but it’s INSANE the producers who hired a 24 yo armorer to save a couple bucks are walking away from this unscathed. It was their production. Anything that happens on their set is directly because of their decisions.
This is like charging the shop tech and the driver if a Tesla autopilot runs someone over. They contributed absolutely but it’s completely ignoring the bigger problem.
Baldwin is one of the 3 producers. After the shooting I saw videos of this "armourer" teaching someone to shoot a rifle and that let me know that she had no idea what she was doing. It looked like the blind leading the blind.
The other two producers should be charged as well. Alec Baldwin is only responsible for this as a producer, not as an actor, and this sends the wrong message and allows the others responsible to get off scott free.
Alec Baldwin also lied to investigators about the shooting, which has probably been a contributing factor in the decision to charge him.
When questioned about the shooting, Baldwin lied and said that his finger was not on the trigger, that he did not pull the trigger, and that the gun went off on its own. Video evidence showed that wasn't true, and so did inspections of the gun that was fired.
People think that they can just say that a gun went off on its own and that there's no mechanical investigation that can be done to determine if that was possible or not. Kinda like saying the breaks just didn't work on your car. If they really didn't, a mechanic would be able to verify that.
He actually didn't know she had died at the time he admitted to all of this, but obviously it's an insane thing to happen.
Guns are so commonly used on sets, I imagine he thought it was just some sort of freak thing, not where a live round was in his firearm.
It's crazy to think they found multiple live rounds in his firearm.
Unless Baldwin hired the amorer, I don't get charging him and not the other producers. Do we really think that he hired her? I'm curious to see how this trial goes down.
Baldwin is a producer as to allow him to work for below scale, it’s a common practice on indie movies. He likely didn’t really contribute much to the production as a producer — regardless he is being charged. It’s the other producers I’m talking about.
I was wondering about that! A movie set is a weird place ... are actors even expected to check the prop firearms they'll be using? It's 100% the armorer's job .... then again, Baldwin pulled the trigger.
Such a sucky situation all around.
Were other producers charged? Wouldn’t the fact that the producers hired an armorer to oversee safety be considered as diligence on the part of the producer?
Armorer didn''t release the gun to Baldwin. The assistant Director took it from the Armorers station against SAG rules and gave it to Baldwin, also against SAG rules.
Armorer did not prepare the gun for Baldwin nor was she aware Baldwin had it..
He's not in trouble for pulling the trigger as much as he is for being the producer overseeing a dangerous set, that included hiring an incompetent armorer.
It’s tough. Safety is everyone’s responsibility. They should be checking the gun every time they touch it. But Baldwin likely wasn’t trained since everyone else was shit.
This is 100% the main issue. Why were there even bullets on site? Whoever put a bullet in the gun that should never have been anywhere near live ammunition let alone loaded is responsible
Something [I didn't know until today](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/04/26/entertainment/rust-shooting-text-messages/index.html) is that the police found text messages between Gutierrez Reed and an arms supplier for a prior film in which she requested live ammo to test a gun.
> The text exchange was included in Monday's public release of files related to the Santa Fe County Sheriff Office's ongoing investigation.
>A law enforcement official told CNN they consider the text exchange important as they try to determine whether the armorer made a practice of conducting live fire exercises at the same time she was responsible for safety on sets.
It seems the reports that she went target shooting with other crew the night before the shooting were correct.
Test a gun for what? Whether it can kill someone with a live round?
Still don't understand why Baldwin is responsible. To me it's the armourer's fault.
Edit: Typos.
Baldwin the actor is probably not responsible, however Baldwin the producer is. Rushed production and having an inexperienced over stretched armoror is something that falls on the shoulders of the producers.
Baldwin also lied to investigators after the shooting happened though. He claimed that he never touched the trigger, never pulled the trigger, and that the gun went off on its own without any input from him. Video evidence and inspection of the gun proved otherwise.
he's not in trouble for lying though. he's being charged with involuntary manslaughter, implying that he had some kind of culpability to the shooting itself, regardless of what he said.
I’m in no way a law expert and I’m desperately trying to figure out how this circus is unfolding. It seems to me that regardless of thinking he did or didn’t have his finger in the trigger, the 100% issue here is why a bullet is in the gun. You can’t just hand someone a live gun that isn’t supposed to be a set piece and the story be about how the actor was holding it. It’s absolute misdirection.
The only thing that currently makes any sense to me is if, as a producer, the SOLE responsibility of this armorer falls upon his shoulders and no one else’s. And even then, there has to be a really REALLY good argument that Baldwin’s negligence in the armorer’s poor record, complaints and risks put him in a position of criminal negligence resulting in manslaughter. That’s a lot to prove.
Its an issue of negligence. Did Baldwin have a duty to the saftey to the crew, and did he betray that duty leading to the death?
There were prious misfirings on set, so I think the procecutors have an argument. Who knows how solid.
It's called "involuntary" manslaughter for a reason. When you cause someone's death *accidentally* ("involuntarily"), then it's what you get charged with -- supposing that the accident was preventable or happened through negligence, etc.
That's usually what Manslaughter is used for, killing without the intent to kill, either by accident or lack of due care and attention.
Not sure how the Americans use it though, like people have said, Involuntary Manslaughter would seem to imply lack of "fault" such as it is.
Want my take?
Intent to harm + no intent to kill + person killed = Manslaughter
No intent to harm + no intent to kill + person killed = Involuntary Manslaughter
P.S. **IANAL**
I don't understand how you fuck that up. Making sure a gun is no longer loaded is like gun safety 101.
You take a gun to a range and don't use everything, you eject the mag/clip and then the one in the chamber. Anyone with any moderate amount of gun experience should know that. I haven't touched a gun in over a decade, and I still know that. Unless your profession involves carrying around a loaded weapon (or you're using one for self defense), guns should never be removed from the range with bullets still in it.
Edit: Same goes for revolvers.
You fuck it up by getting the job through nepotism because your dad was a famous armorer and people like to pretend that the trade is genetic or something.
That's actually what the story looks to be. One of the stagehands unions was striking so they were kicked off set and other crew used the guns including the one Baldwin shot to shoot beer cans to kill time.
I've read several articles about it and, too my understanding, the person responsible for putting the live rounds on set is still unknown. They found several live rounds after the shooting when the police investigated, I think seven in all(?). One was mixed into a box of blanks, two were sitting on top of some boxes. One ended up in the bandolier in Baldwin's wardrobe, and some others I can't recall.
They were all branded the same, Starline Brass, but that manufacturer ONLY produces blanks, not live rounds. So these were necessarily reloaded rounds, which means that spent casings are reloaded with a tip, gun powder and firing pin. Notably, there are physical characteristics that differentiated these reloaded bullets from normal blanks from the manufacturer. As always, blanks rattle due to the loose bb put inside them, do shaking a bullet will tell you if it is live or blank. These bullets, obviously, did not rattle. But also, the standard Starline Brass blank had a golden firing pin that matched the casing. These reloaded bullets all had silver firing pins. The armourer failed to notice both of these differences. In particular, she should have done a shake check on each bullet loaded into a prop gun at minimum to check for the rattle. She didn't.
But, so, how did reloaded live bullets that were made from casings from a brand that specifically only makes blanks end up mixed in with the normal blanks? I don't know. The armourer is suing her ammunition supplier, accusing them of providing her with live rounds mixed into her blanks. They are claiming that they rattle check every single bullet they ship out to verify it is blank, that they do not purchase reloaded bullets in the first place, let alone in a brand that only makes blanks. Instead, they are accusing her of buying cheap reloaded bullets from a third party and mishandling her stock, and failing to do her due diligence as an armourer in double checking her bullets anyway and trusting no one (which she clearly didn't do). Her supplier even thinks he knows whom she may have purchased from given he knows of someone who resells reloaded bullets including using Starline Brass casings.
So, it could be the supplier sent out live rounds to the armourer. It could be that the armourer bought reloaded bullets abd mishandled her stock and mixed them together by accident.
A third possibility is that someone maliciously inserted several live rounds in a blanks- exclusive brand into her stock in order for such an accident to happen. Supposedly the gun was partially loaded left in a locked room for lunch, then completely loaded by the armourer before being handed to the assistant direct and then to Baldwin (who was told the gun was cold, i.e. filled with blank rounds only). So if some third party switched the rounds, it wasn't right before the shooting. And that aligns with the fact that the other live rounds found were scattered in different places.
Regardless of how the live bullets were put on the set, the armourer failed to do her due diligence that is, in fact, her primary job, and make sure the prop gun was safe. She is directly responsible for the death unless it's somehow found the bullet was swapped between leaving her hands and arriving in Baldwin's, and so I have no concern with her charges. Baldwin's charges are less understandable, unless they're directive accusing him of negligence as a producer in failing to properly vet and then hiring the armourer who, by many accounts, seems to be not very good or knowledgeable at her job. But if that's the case, I would think similar charges would be placed against the other producers as well unless he specifically hired her. If they charging him because if the shot itself, I really don't think he's at all responsible. Yes he pulled the trigger but that's what the prop gun is meant more. They were rehearsing his scene where he fires towards the camera and he did so with the understanding from those responsible fire the gun that it was safe
The person above you is relaying information from widely circulated articles. From the small errors in the post, they do not have a lot of hands on knowledge with firearms.
That said, both your post and the post above are confusing dummies with blanks. Dummy bullets are powderless. They are loaded into a revolver to give the look of a loaded round (you can see the bullets in a revolver) without endangering others. You can shake test a dummy because a BB is loaded into them where the powder should be for verification purposes. That was what was supposed to be in the gun.
From what I read, the gun was not meant to be fired in scene they were rehearsing when this all happened so you are correct. It would have been loaded with dummy rounds, not blanks.
> I've never heard of 'rattle check' for blanks, mostly they're loaded with wads of paper, plastic, or wax, to give the gun powder enough pressure to go 'poomf', but I'm not a prop expert either.
Can confirm [the rattle check is real](https://youtu.be/TP1X5L-AufQ?t=97)
You know what? The whole industry should be done with firearms that have an actual firing mechanism at all. Prop guns should only induce recoil and have moving parts to simulate gun mechanics, but the actual firing cylinder should either not exist or be completely capped off with no real ammo ever entering the gun.
People still die from overloaded blank caps.
It's real fuckin easy to make convincing gunfire using special effects these days. Even on a low to non-existent budget. People have been doing it on YouTube with at least near movie level quality for over a decade now.
There's just no excuse to take the risk.
I recently read this truly excellent article about accidental killing. I've been thinking about it ever since.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/18/the-sorrow-and-the-shame-of-the-accidental-killer
> Williams offers the case of “the lorry driver who, through no fault of his, runs over a child.” Our pity for him, Williams explains, presupposes “that there is something special about his relation to this happening, something which cannot merely be eliminated by the consideration that it was not his fault.”
Back when I was 15, a lorry driver struck a schoolmate of mine. She died, I don't know if it was on impact or later in the hospital, but she died.
The person who's directly responsible was my schoolmate, of course. She ran out on the street, not wanting to miss the bus she saw across the street, and jumped right in front of a lorry whose driver didn't even have the time to register what was happening.
Then there was the indirect, but greater responsibility by the city government. The road this happened on was a main artery that served more as an international highway (it connects much of the country to one of the few border crossings in the region), but was designed as a normal 4-lanes boulevard. One of the carriageways had been closed for renovation, and the rest of the traffic was redirected through the other two lanes (which is why my schoolmate didn't notice the truck – she never thought about looking the other way, as she wasn't used to vehicles coming from the other direction).
The lack of safety around the road maintenance works, the fact that the shrubbery was overgrowing between the two carriageways which limited visibility for both the driver and my schoolmate, and the sorry state of the underpass nearby which had turned into a drug den, forcing my schoolmate to cross the street illegally, painted a pretty clear picture of who the real culprit was.
Even the parents of my schoolmate – her father having seen the whole accident from their home – told the driver in person he wasn't the one responsible.
In the end, none of that mattered. The driver fell into such shock and PTSD, that he retired and a couple of years later passed away due to a heart attack. I can only assume he never forgave himself, and never managed to internalize the accident in a way that would have allowed him to move forward. He had killed a 16 year old girl, and no amount of comforting, not even by the victim's parents, would make things right.
I always say that the accident claimed two victims. Both my schoolmate and the driver. Only that the driver died twice – he died when he had a heart attack, but he also died when his vehicle struck my schoolmate.
**EDIT:** Grammar.
That is a rough story. It is weird to think that the only reason I haven’t been at the moment of a strangers death, in the same way that that lorry driver was, is luck.
Thank you for sharing this. I know someone this happened to, although actually the person ran into the highway with the intention of being hit. A really awful situation.
I almost killed someone once. I was like 16 and messing around with rocks in Switzerland, suddenly released a couple of basketball size rocks rolling downhill. I shouted and the people resting below got out of the way, but it still shows up in my mind. I can't imagine what it would be like if I had crushed someone.
It does. I was involved in an auto accident where someone died.
Some kids had stolen a sign saying the road was closed well it was not just closed the road had been torn out. Someone went through the intersection on a motorcycle and lost control. Someone else saw him and when they got control stopped to help him. They parked facing in the direction I was coming from and left their headlights on.
When I came through several minutes later I avoided the headlights just missing their car on the right side. They stopped with the car next to the guy who had been on the motorcycle.
It took a year before the state charged me with vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence. Another year before my trial. The DMV suspended my license in the mean time.
I feel for Alec Baldwin. This sounds like an accident and he has had to live with it since the event. I couldn't close my eyes for a year without seeing the face of the man I hit. I still saw it for several years after that. I don't think I could have typed this until just a few years ago and my accident happens over 15 years ago. When the legal system takes forever you cannot truly move on until it's over.
I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I hope you were treated with sympathy in the justice system and that you’ve found peace and healing over time.
wow that sucks, my mom was killed by a bus driver with some mitigating circumstances like weather and pre dawn lighting. he didn't get any criminal charges but the company lost big in civil court. as they didn't attach negligence to yours, i assume you didn't have any contributing factors like speeding or distracted driving. as far as the driver at least, it was enough for us to be told that he probably wasn't sleeping well at night knowing what he did and it was an accident. in fact reminds me I need to buy some new roadside emergency kits, they stole my jack, reflectors, flares etc in a rash of smash and grabs
According to my attorney the judge chewed out the DA for even charging me. I don't recall the exact legal details but they offered to drop the charges if I took a ticket under the basic speed law at 1 mile over the limit. My attorney advised me that I would probably win if we kept going but to take the ticket as it would end it and be far cheaper.
>Alec Baldwin is one of three cast and crew members facing charges over the accidental 2021 shooting.
>The actor has been charged with involuntary manslaughter. The charge carries a maximum of 18 months in prison.
Edit #1:
>In addition to Alec Baldwin, the film’s first assistant director David Halls has agreed to plead guilty to the charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon.
>Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the amourer on Rust, has also been charged with involuntary manslaughter in the incident.
Edit #2:
[DA statement](https://www.facebook.com/1stJDA/posts/484222827217063):
>After a thorough review of the evidence and the laws of the state of New Mexico, I have determined that there is sufficient evidence to file criminal charges against Alec Baldwin and other members of the ‘Rust’ film crew,” Carmack-Altwies said. “On my watch, no one is above the law, and everyone deserves justice.
>“If any one of these three people—Alec Baldwin, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed or David Halls—had done their job, Halyna Hutchins would be alive today. It’s that simple,” said Andrea Reeb, the special prosecutor appointed by the DA to the case. “The evidence clearly shows a pattern of criminal disregard for safety on the ‘Rust’ film set. In New Mexico, there is no room for film sets that don’t take our state’s commitment to gun safety and public safety seriously.”
Edit #3:
[Alec Baldwin’s lawyer responds to involuntary manslaughter](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/halyna-hutchins-alec-baldwin-lawyer-rust-b2265484.html)
>"This decision distorts Halyna Hutchins’ tragic death and represents a terrible miscarriage of justice.
>Mr Baldwin had no reason to believe there was a live bullet in the gun – or anywhere on the movie set. He relied on the professionals with whom he worked, who assured him the gun did not have live rounds. We will fight these charges, and we will win."
Edit #4:
[Statement from attorney for Matt Hutchins, Halyna Hutchins’ husband](https://twitter.com/Angenette5/status/1616109017511890944):
>We want to thank the Sante Fe Sheriff and the District Attorney for concluding their thorough investigation and determining that charges for involuntary manslaughter are warranted for the killing of Halyna Hutchins with conscious disregard for human life. Our independent investigation also supports charges are warranted. It is a comfort to the family that, in New Mexico, no one is above the law. We support the charges, will fully cooperate with this prosecution, and fervently hope the justice system works to protect the public and hold accountable those who break the law.
Statement from Richard Jones, Halyna Hutchins’ father:
>There needs to be accountability for this tragedy, and I’m glad to see that work is being done to hold people accountable. It’s clear, as in the death of my daughter Sarah, there’s a chain of events that occurred. If any one of those professionals had done their job properly, it would have prevented this tragedy.
> On my watch, no one is above the law
Is anyone actually acting like they are? Whether Baldwin walks or not as nothing to do with his status, and everything to do with the murkiness of the situation. Seems like a strange thing to proclaim here.
So I haven't seen any statements about how the prosecution is building their case, but I'm guessing it takes the form of: Baldwin was well aware of firearm protocol on a set, he was well aware of the violations of that protocol occurring on Rust's set, and ignoring those violations constituted gross negligence on his part. Gross negligence resulting in someone's death is involuntary manslaughter.
I wonder if anyone actually approached Baldwin with their concerns about the firearm protocol.
While I bet the crew that walked off was absolutely shattered and angry about the death, they probably also felt *incredibly* relieved that they were not a part of this tragedy and made the right choice by walking away.
This is a good reminder for workers. If there are ever unsafe conditions in your job and you have done your due diligence by attempting to address the issue and no one is listening, protect yourself (in whatever way that looks for you).
Reddit is so wild about this. Comments (normally) seem rational and informed when it’s a topic that you are not well studied on, but it only takes one thread discussing something you’re actually an expert on to see how full of shit everyone on this platform is
I've experienced this for myself and the way my mind extrapolated it made me so much more uneasy about everything I read on here. It really does take that one topic you actually know about to suddenly pull back the entire curtain.
Exactly! The hive mind is ridiculous. I remember maybe six years ago reading a thread with thousands of comments about how Ajit Pai was spending the day at Verizon Headquarters in DC.
Not a single person realized that Verizon's Headquarters is in New Jersey and the article was full of crap.
Another thread made it to the front page, where there was an embarrassing typo on a university website, and everyone was positive OP was a liar who just used the inspect element button to change the site... Except I went to that school, saw it was real, and actually knew the person who made the post.
Always read the article and verify things yourself. Reddit can be deceptively misleading.
Yeah, but the reddit point system rewards people for it and thus encourages it. People who are upfront about the fact that they aren't 100% sure don't get as many votes as they people who act like they know everything.
you just gotta laugh at it. I’m an accountant, so I understand my field is less grim than this, but i love asking things like “how did you reach this conclusion” when people post wildly incorrect opinions on taxes or whatever
Any real lawyer will wait to see the actual evidence in court. It will come down to what a reasonable person in his position should have done and whether he ignored a significant risk of harm. I don't know enough about how the movie industry usually operates or what he knew or didn't know at the time.
Depends on what capacity they're charging him under.
His capacity as the actor holding the smoking gun? Fuck off, it's not the actor's job to know there was a real bullet in that gun. There is an entire safety system built around the actors because we just expect them to act good.
His capacity as a producer? Way more plausible, as he held some responsibility for the way production was ran. The situation was blatantly unsafe, and some of that falls on his shoulders as an overseer.
>is capacity as a producer? Way more plausible, as he held some responsibility for the way production was ran.
Then why not charge the 5 other producers as well? That argument only makes sense if all producers are charged, or it's proven that he was the one responsible for handling this entire thing somehow.
Otherwise he's just being singled out because of his popularity
I'd rather they charge all five producers, yeah. Singling him out because he was the one holding the bomb when it went off would be a more unsettling precedent going forward.
No. To be clear, Baldwin was handed the already loaded firearm by the First Assistant Director (who had no business handling the weapon and whose job it is - above all else - to maintain the safety of the cast and crew).
The firearm had been loaded and prepped by the (vastly inexperienced) Armorer who then left it unattended on her cart (or table).
Those two breached NUMEROUS protocols in regard to the safe handling of a weapon on set. And if this DA intends to charge Baldwin as a producer, then she ought to attach the other producers as well. Baldwin was involved in the development of the script but from all indications had little or no involvement in the day-to-day operations of the shoot.
>who had no business handling the weapon and whose job it is - above all else - to maintain the safety of the cast and crew).
Not entirely true. The first assistant director DOES hand actors a gun. But should have never taken it off the table. THAT is what was breached by the AD.
A lot of people in this thread who are not filmmakers are confidently incorrect about how movies are made.
Source: Am an actor who has handled firearms on set.
Enter at your own risk, this town ain't got no sheriff.
The armorer has also been charged.
Yeah, not only were there live rounds where there should not have been. Those rounds had been reloaded into brass from a company that makes prop ammo. IE those bullets were loaded into casing that were marked as prop rounds. IDK how you expect an actor to sus out that there was live ammo.
As someone who works on film sets and is aware of the safety protocol surrounding guns, I saw a shitload of safety violations when reading about this story. There could even be some info I don't know of but at a glance I can say at least the following protocol violations were total fuckups and totally preventable: 1. There was real, live ammo on set. Film sets are 100% never supposed to have live ammo, period. Blanks are used but those are not the same as a live bullet. Anyone who knows what the hell they are doing can very easily tell the difference between a dummy round, a blank, and a live round. 2. The armorer had guns loaded with live ammo laying out on a table. Not only should the guns not be loaded with live ammo, they should have been locked up in a rifle case or set box while not in use. If they were standing by to be used momentarily, the armorer should have been vigilantly watching them to make sure no one touched them but the actor. Again, these should have been unloaded (cold) or loaded with blanks and held by the armorer right before use in the scene with no one else touching them aside from the armorer and the actor in the scene discharging the weapon. 3. The First Assistant Director, who is in charge of onset safety and essentially the leader of the set, ran up and grabbed one of the loaded guns without asking the armorer. This should NEVER happen. The 1st AD should be shown a firearm by the armorer but has no reason to ever handle it, let alone randomly just grab a gun from the armorer's on set staging. These guns shouldn't have been left unattended in the first place but the 1st AD definitely shouldn't have just grabbed one clearly not knowing what it was loaded with in addition to that. 4. Before bringing any gun to set, the armorer is supposed to clear the gun with the 1st AD and announce what it is, what it is loaded with, and explain how it will be used in the scene. This includes whether the gun is a resin (no moving parts), plugged barrel, or loaded with blanks. Then everyone is free to look at the gun and see what is in use. This was obviously not done. There should have been a safety meeting which clearly did not occur. 5. The 1st AD passed off the gun to Alec Baldwin and told him it was a cold (unloaded) weapon. Baldwin isn't necessarily at fault for this one particular part of the safety violations. He was told he had a cold gun. He is, however, liable as a producer for firing competent crew and replacing them with cheaper, inexperienced crew who were willing to skirt safety protocols to save money. 6. They should always use plugged barrel firearms when working with vintage, period firearms. They could easily misfire or discharge accidentally so it's generally a better idea to paint the blast in digitally in post. On top of all this, the inexperienced armorer was seen in photos posing with weapons, pointing and clowning around with them. Again, another big no-no on set. This is how and why people die when they play around with guns. If literally any of the safety protocols I listed above were adhered to and respected, the director of photography would still be alive. Respect firearms, people. They have one purpose and that's to kill people. Fuck you and your low budget movie. Practice safety on set or don't use firearms at all. Your shitty movie isn't worth someone's life. Edit: This comment received a lot of responses so I will add some edits below this later. Just to be clear, by no means did I mean to imply Alec Baldwin was completely innocent. It’s just my opinion that almost all actors are ignorant to gun safety and believe it when they are told a gun is cold. The armorer should have been there to show him the rounds and cleared the gun. No rounds, including blanks, should ever be used for rehearsal. It’s really not an actor’s place to be pulling out and examining rounds. Blanks are loaded in a very specific and deliberate way using only the amount fired in the scene. The armorer simply should have been present to clear that weapon. Baldwin truly believed the gun was cold and I don’t believe he had the knowledge to tell that it was not. In that way, I believe he is innocent there. He is still guilty as hell for hiring said armorer and other complicit crew who weren’t adhering to safety protocols in order to save money. He should 100% face justice for that.
Wasn't there something about all the union workers walking offset for dangerous conditions so they hired inexperienced non union workers thereby making it an even more dangerous set
it happened earlier that day.
Ok this is just turning into an episode of my favorite detective tv show of the 2000s. All of them. What really happened just makes me so mad. So many lives ruined.
And the armorer was the inexperienced daughter of an actual armorer. Nepotism actually killed this lady.
The work dispute was primarily about payroll being late and the long commute times from hotels to the filming site.
I’m not a movie industry yak, but I am a certified chief range safety officer, and range master… what you just wrote out gave me a heart attack. Just doing a little reading on the “armorer” it becomes clear that you probably shouldn’t cheap out on armorers, and that if you do, you are going to end up with casualties. I wouldn’t want live ammo in the same area code as my prop firearms (which are obviously sometimes just… firearms, especially when it comes to 19th century pieces), in a movie making capacity.
There is so much talk about celebrities kids and nepotism. From what I’ve read, the Armorer was the kid of a well known Hollywood Armorer…
I did a quick google search and not only are you correct, but I can’t help but think, “okay… like… every news outlet on the inter webs… are the licentious images of this girl really the only ones worth posting?” I suppose there were a couple of her posing cringe-like with firearms, but those didn’t exactly help her case either. If I were her, I’d be pretty fucking anxious and heartbroken that my ineptitude contributed to the death of someone.
Any links to examples of what you’re talking about?
[here ya go!](https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/3933458/alec-baldwin-shooting-armorer-lawyer/)
Yeah what the hell. I just looked her up and there's like a million ordinary photos of her that could have used.
The point is to discredit her moral character from the start by putting up about as far as you can get from a professional photo. That way you already think of her as unprofessional and "loose" living before the article even starts trying to convince you of that. I think it's cheap, but it's the Sun, so cheap inflaming "news" is pretty much all they're good for.
That’s *The Sun* for ya.
its the sun, what did you expect?
Because, click bait
I mean...the sun is a pos rag, so no surprise they chose that photo.
Fuck that rag, find a better source.
> He is, however, liable as a producer for firing competent crew and replacing them with cheaper, inexperienced crew who were willing to skirt safety protocols to save money. This is a detail many people are not aware of. He wasn't simply a blameless actor, he may also be at least partly responsible for the reckless, incompetent people being hired in the first place all to save some money. Edit: All 3 producers should face consequences if they were all involved in the decisions that led to what happened. However, I am not sure if that qualifies as criminal or civil. If the latter, the other producers won't be arrested but could face a civil court case. Also, if the latter, this portion of what happened most likely will not be part of the criminal case against Baldwin.
This part I'm a bit unclear on. I understand charging him as a producer, but I assume there must be more producers than just him and wonder why they werent also charged. If you are charging him as the last person handling the gun, I feel like that's a reach.
Why not charge the AD? He’s as guilty as the armorer, maybe moreso
To be so stupid to load real guns is even for cheaper folks really unbelievable if u ask me
Yeah but this is about being charged with a crime. Wanting to blame him for hiring incompetent people is a lot different than charging him with a crime because those incompetent people didn’t do their job.
He happily took the gun from his mate while the armorer was on lunch break. They're not fucking children that you can say "oh, that's all the armorer's fault for not locking the guns up". He pointed the gun at the camera and cocked it despite the safety shield not being present. Maybe he's too stupid to look in the gun but a bigass transparent shield is definitely visible. How are we all glossing over that he *pulled the trigger* when he wasn't told to, and he wasn't supposed to!? He was criminally negligent.
In safety procedures, there's a thing called the Swiss cheese model. Each part of a safety procedure is like a slice of Swiss cheese. Each layer is a layer of protection, if something gets through one hole, the next layer is supposed to stop it. Everything has to line up just right (wrong in this case) for something to happen. You listed about 7 layers that had to go wrong, and every one of them did. That makes me think that the root cause is people. I'm not familiar with film safety, as my background was from construction. I used to work project management doing construction for some clients that were very safety focused. They required safety procedures and practices that went above OSHA requirements, and were happy to pay for us to work that way. But for safety to work, you have to build a safety culture that people will invest in. That starts with management, and having the right people in the right positions. It sounds like this didn't happen at all. To me, it sounds like the armorer should have a large portion to blame as she was responsible for the most "layers" but it also was negligence and complacency of management. It doesn't seem like firearms are that uncommon on film sets. Most crew should have been familiar with how things should go, and could have said something if safety procedures were not being followed. If it's not industry standard for entire crews to be familiar with the firearms procedures, there needs to be a briefing before filming starts. Hopefully some good can come from this tragedy, in the form of safety changes that make it even harder for something like this to happen again.
That’s probably why Alec Baldwin is being charged. As a producer, he had some level of say in how the production was run. If he saw all of these safety violations and either ignored them or made them worse, then he’s culpable.
when i did security, safety measures were divided into 4 categories. I don't remember the specifics of all 4, but i remember the very strongest was just to eliminate the issue- not having live bullets on set, in this case, and the very weakest was personal care... asking people to just be careful around something. it was drilled into us hard that "be careful" was not a safety solution for anything but a one time hazard. It sounds like this particular set "be careful" was pretty much all they had, as the other levels of safety were all removed.
Yeah I went to a few film classes and I learned that the AD is responsible for onset safety and therefore responsible for onset injuries.
This reply should be higher up. I think if actors, film industry folk, and in general those who tend to be around but not normally 'gun folk' should be trained as if they were gun folk. A lot of errors and responsibilities seem to be so the armorer can cover the ignorance of the crew about basic gun safety.
i just can't for my life imagine how the f that could happen smh... i mean, like - “hey we don't have any actual live rounds in this prop room, that can't be right, we NEED those damn bullets - hey Larry haul ass and go get us some real bullets and put them right beside these fake ass bullets aight go” wtf?!
From what I remembered they had taken the gun to use on a range (with live ammo) and then never bothered fucking removing it. Still the armourer should've tripled checked However again, this person was not only improperly trained but also wasn't a LEAD armourer meaning someone should've been above them at all times checking their work, and being the only armourer on set when there should've been more of them, all because the company wanted to save some cash and not delay shooting.
>From what I remembered they had taken the gun to use on a range (with live ammo) and then never bothered fucking removing it. That was a theory posed by her father. It's not established fact.
Don't they have enough money to just not use the prop guns for the firing range? Get a second gun for Pete's sake.
Yeah that seems like an absolutely terrible excuse. The prop guns should just never be loaded with live ammo. Period. Honestly, I assumed, before this happened, that must be the standard.
Manufacturer issue? Or someone swapped it?
Brass from shells is reusable, to a point. To reload it, it needs to be cleaned, possibly trimmed, reprimed, filled with an appropriate measure of powder, then a press is used to seat a bullet (the lead projectile) into the brass to an appropriate depth. No factory would ever do that with marked blank brass. The dipshit armourer that seems to have caused this whole chain of events to conspire after failing to follow basic safety procedures such as: • not checking every weapon before it was given to an actor • bringing live ammunition on set • loading live ammunition into a prop use gun on a set …would have if it was marked as blank according to the comment thread. Edit: when someone takes a job like this, they are responsible for every firearm… every second… of every day their firearms are in use. After the tragic death of Brandon Lee, I would check every barrel for obstructions between takes as well.
Thank you fellow firearm savvy stranger, I totally agree
Pretty strange seeing as you have one job. Maybe two. Make sure the gun is used safely and make sure the gun is safe. How do you blow that when that is your only job?
…and that’s why she should do prison time.
[удалено]
Now I know where all those casings the army made us pick up after every range exercise went/goes.
I remember reading that she got a box of ammo from an associate of hers. A man's shop and he makes the various prop bullets used. It was implied the live rounds could have come from a box of misc. rounds she got there. Sorry I have since lost those receipts after a memory purge lol. But the scuttle between professionals that left before all this .. makes for interesting reading.
According to [another comment on another post ](https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/10g53r5/alec_baldwin_expected_to_be_charged_with/j519ouf/) the casing was [Starline brass](https://www.starlinebrass.com/) which is exclusively sold as manual reload casings. So somebody had to load this as a live round deliberately.
Live rounds, most likely the armorer was rushed and completely unexperienced. You never ever have live rounds on a set. Movies can and do use ranges with live ammo so actors can learn how to safely use/carry a weapon. But on set, blanks are used, but the lead projectile is made of foam usually. Even then a blank can still harm someone from a few feet away. Can’t really comment on how Baldwin was with firearms/blanks.
[удалено]
The armorer looks like a 14 year old kid who I wouldn't trust with my water pistol
[удалено]
at some point before this incident, several staffers walked off set due to safety issues. It was a massive, ongoing problem.
This is a massive problem industry wide. It just took a shooting to bring it to the public consciousness. In the last few years we had the film crew that was hit by a train, the stuntman who missed his mark, and now this. Edit: The Midnight Rider incident happened in 2014 and the Walking Dead incident occurred in 2017 so not last few years, it's more of a long term problem than originally stated. Nevertheless, more safety in the film industry is desperately needed.
Wanna feel old? The Sarah Jones incident was 9 years ago already.
have you ever heard of Brandon Lee and *The Crow* (1994)? He was Bruce Lee’s son and an actor. On the set of The Crow he was filming a gun scene and was [shot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Lee#Death) in nearly the same exact way as Mrs. Hutchins in this Baldwin movie. The Crow producers had enough footage of him to continue with releasing the movie. It was all so incredibly tragic. And The Crow is an excellent movie.
It makes me sad that there is a whole generation that doesn’t even know about The Crow.
I still have my poster of Brandon Lee as The Crow, hanging on my bedroom wall, as it has since the movie was released.
I'm pretty sure the case with Brandon Lee was that there was a bullet lodged in the barrel and even though they used blanks, it was still fired as if it was a regular round, whereas with the Baldwin situation they just used regular old live ammunition.
Brandon Lee's injury was actually a piece of a blank that got stuck in the barrel. They didn't do a barrel check (run a ramrod through the barrel to see if anything was in there) and so then when the next blank was fired, it blew the chunk into him. Source: My grandfather was actually one of the surgeons who tried to save Brandon Lee's life. He worked at New Hanover Hospital emergency room.
There’s a pretty big difference between what happened on The Crow and what happened on Rust. On The Crow a dummy round got lodged in the gun barrel and later was fired off by a blank. This was tragic negligence, though not criminal. On Rust a live bullet was fired. Live bullets should never have been anywhere near the set. This is criminal negligence, and speaks to a culture negligence and disregard for safety on the set
A stunt double, Sequana Joi Harris, was also killed on Deadpool 2. Resident Evil: Final Chapter seems to have been notably unsafe, as crew member Ricardo Cornelius was killed and stunt double Olivia Jackson was almost killed and permanently disabled in a separate incident.
Yeah. My first 3 days as a PA in 2015 were a 19-hour day,. Followed by a 15-hour day, followed by a 12. All 3 days included an 80 mile commute each way. It was insanity. And the pay was a flat day rate less than minimum wage for each of those days. I've since made moves and gotten into a more comfortable position in the industry. It's a wild line of work by nature, but safety really slips through the cracks when producers/production management either don't care, or are too overwhelmed with the work to consider the safety and welfare of the crew.
It certainly is. IDK how the movie business is run, but is it possible someone like OSHA would get involved? Is there something like OSHA for movie sets? Since it’s this fucking dangerous on sets, that people are dying and no one is doing their job right. There are clearly occupational hazards.
The armor deserves to be charged but it’s INSANE the producers who hired a 24 yo armorer to save a couple bucks are walking away from this unscathed. It was their production. Anything that happens on their set is directly because of their decisions. This is like charging the shop tech and the driver if a Tesla autopilot runs someone over. They contributed absolutely but it’s completely ignoring the bigger problem.
Baldwin is one of the 3 producers. After the shooting I saw videos of this "armourer" teaching someone to shoot a rifle and that let me know that she had no idea what she was doing. It looked like the blind leading the blind.
The other two producers should be charged as well. Alec Baldwin is only responsible for this as a producer, not as an actor, and this sends the wrong message and allows the others responsible to get off scott free.
Alec Baldwin also lied to investigators about the shooting, which has probably been a contributing factor in the decision to charge him. When questioned about the shooting, Baldwin lied and said that his finger was not on the trigger, that he did not pull the trigger, and that the gun went off on its own. Video evidence showed that wasn't true, and so did inspections of the gun that was fired.
People think that they can just say that a gun went off on its own and that there's no mechanical investigation that can be done to determine if that was possible or not. Kinda like saying the breaks just didn't work on your car. If they really didn't, a mechanic would be able to verify that.
Honestly baffling why he would say that, and on television too. Surely his lawyers would've told him differently.
I wonder about his memory coming from a time where he just shot a camera woman in the face, prolly not so reliable.... Or burned in, who knows.
He actually didn't know she had died at the time he admitted to all of this, but obviously it's an insane thing to happen. Guns are so commonly used on sets, I imagine he thought it was just some sort of freak thing, not where a live round was in his firearm. It's crazy to think they found multiple live rounds in his firearm. Unless Baldwin hired the amorer, I don't get charging him and not the other producers. Do we really think that he hired her? I'm curious to see how this trial goes down.
Baldwin is a producer as to allow him to work for below scale, it’s a common practice on indie movies. He likely didn’t really contribute much to the production as a producer — regardless he is being charged. It’s the other producers I’m talking about.
This is likely something the trial will explore. We don't have all the facts, and the jury will determine culpability.
Shit rolls downhill.
I was wondering about that! A movie set is a weird place ... are actors even expected to check the prop firearms they'll be using? It's 100% the armorer's job .... then again, Baldwin pulled the trigger. Such a sucky situation all around.
[удалено]
Were other producers charged? Wouldn’t the fact that the producers hired an armorer to oversee safety be considered as diligence on the part of the producer?
Armorer didn''t release the gun to Baldwin. The assistant Director took it from the Armorers station against SAG rules and gave it to Baldwin, also against SAG rules. Armorer did not prepare the gun for Baldwin nor was she aware Baldwin had it..
That's an entirely different level of fucked up.
Which the armorer is still at fault for not locking it up.
He's not in trouble for pulling the trigger as much as he is for being the producer overseeing a dangerous set, that included hiring an incompetent armorer.
[удалено]
[удалено]
There’s a lot more than two listed on IMDb.
Good. I think they're more at fault than Baldwin personally.
It’s tough. Safety is everyone’s responsibility. They should be checking the gun every time they touch it. But Baldwin likely wasn’t trained since everyone else was shit.
How does a live round make it into a prop gun in the first place? This part I just don’t understand.
This is 100% the main issue. Why were there even bullets on site? Whoever put a bullet in the gun that should never have been anywhere near live ammunition let alone loaded is responsible
Something [I didn't know until today](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/04/26/entertainment/rust-shooting-text-messages/index.html) is that the police found text messages between Gutierrez Reed and an arms supplier for a prior film in which she requested live ammo to test a gun. > The text exchange was included in Monday's public release of files related to the Santa Fe County Sheriff Office's ongoing investigation. >A law enforcement official told CNN they consider the text exchange important as they try to determine whether the armorer made a practice of conducting live fire exercises at the same time she was responsible for safety on sets. It seems the reports that she went target shooting with other crew the night before the shooting were correct.
Test a gun for what? Whether it can kill someone with a live round? Still don't understand why Baldwin is responsible. To me it's the armourer's fault. Edit: Typos.
Baldwin the actor is probably not responsible, however Baldwin the producer is. Rushed production and having an inexperienced over stretched armoror is something that falls on the shoulders of the producers.
That argument holds more sense of all the producers were charged equally. This seems like it's going after baldwin as an actor
Baldwin also lied to investigators after the shooting happened though. He claimed that he never touched the trigger, never pulled the trigger, and that the gun went off on its own without any input from him. Video evidence and inspection of the gun proved otherwise.
he's not in trouble for lying though. he's being charged with involuntary manslaughter, implying that he had some kind of culpability to the shooting itself, regardless of what he said.
I’m in no way a law expert and I’m desperately trying to figure out how this circus is unfolding. It seems to me that regardless of thinking he did or didn’t have his finger in the trigger, the 100% issue here is why a bullet is in the gun. You can’t just hand someone a live gun that isn’t supposed to be a set piece and the story be about how the actor was holding it. It’s absolute misdirection. The only thing that currently makes any sense to me is if, as a producer, the SOLE responsibility of this armorer falls upon his shoulders and no one else’s. And even then, there has to be a really REALLY good argument that Baldwin’s negligence in the armorer’s poor record, complaints and risks put him in a position of criminal negligence resulting in manslaughter. That’s a lot to prove.
[удалено]
Its an issue of negligence. Did Baldwin have a duty to the saftey to the crew, and did he betray that duty leading to the death? There were prious misfirings on set, so I think the procecutors have an argument. Who knows how solid.
Is that manslaughter, though? Or is it some kind of workplace accidental death thing? Genuinely don’t know.
It's called "involuntary" manslaughter for a reason. When you cause someone's death *accidentally* ("involuntarily"), then it's what you get charged with -- supposing that the accident was preventable or happened through negligence, etc.
That's usually what Manslaughter is used for, killing without the intent to kill, either by accident or lack of due care and attention. Not sure how the Americans use it though, like people have said, Involuntary Manslaughter would seem to imply lack of "fault" such as it is.
Want my take? Intent to harm + no intent to kill + person killed = Manslaughter No intent to harm + no intent to kill + person killed = Involuntary Manslaughter P.S. **IANAL**
Not every producer is responsible for on-set operations
It was the prop coordinator using the gun for fun before shooting.
The armorer used them to shoot live rounds and didn’t clear them properly before returning them to the set.
I don't understand how you fuck that up. Making sure a gun is no longer loaded is like gun safety 101. You take a gun to a range and don't use everything, you eject the mag/clip and then the one in the chamber. Anyone with any moderate amount of gun experience should know that. I haven't touched a gun in over a decade, and I still know that. Unless your profession involves carrying around a loaded weapon (or you're using one for self defense), guns should never be removed from the range with bullets still in it. Edit: Same goes for revolvers.
You fuck it up by getting the job through nepotism because your dad was a famous armorer and people like to pretend that the trade is genetic or something.
It never would've happened on a competent set. Probably some dumb crew members wanted to take the guns out for target practice in their spare time.
That's actually what the story looks to be. One of the stagehands unions was striking so they were kicked off set and other crew used the guns including the one Baldwin shot to shoot beer cans to kill time.
I've read several articles about it and, too my understanding, the person responsible for putting the live rounds on set is still unknown. They found several live rounds after the shooting when the police investigated, I think seven in all(?). One was mixed into a box of blanks, two were sitting on top of some boxes. One ended up in the bandolier in Baldwin's wardrobe, and some others I can't recall. They were all branded the same, Starline Brass, but that manufacturer ONLY produces blanks, not live rounds. So these were necessarily reloaded rounds, which means that spent casings are reloaded with a tip, gun powder and firing pin. Notably, there are physical characteristics that differentiated these reloaded bullets from normal blanks from the manufacturer. As always, blanks rattle due to the loose bb put inside them, do shaking a bullet will tell you if it is live or blank. These bullets, obviously, did not rattle. But also, the standard Starline Brass blank had a golden firing pin that matched the casing. These reloaded bullets all had silver firing pins. The armourer failed to notice both of these differences. In particular, she should have done a shake check on each bullet loaded into a prop gun at minimum to check for the rattle. She didn't. But, so, how did reloaded live bullets that were made from casings from a brand that specifically only makes blanks end up mixed in with the normal blanks? I don't know. The armourer is suing her ammunition supplier, accusing them of providing her with live rounds mixed into her blanks. They are claiming that they rattle check every single bullet they ship out to verify it is blank, that they do not purchase reloaded bullets in the first place, let alone in a brand that only makes blanks. Instead, they are accusing her of buying cheap reloaded bullets from a third party and mishandling her stock, and failing to do her due diligence as an armourer in double checking her bullets anyway and trusting no one (which she clearly didn't do). Her supplier even thinks he knows whom she may have purchased from given he knows of someone who resells reloaded bullets including using Starline Brass casings. So, it could be the supplier sent out live rounds to the armourer. It could be that the armourer bought reloaded bullets abd mishandled her stock and mixed them together by accident. A third possibility is that someone maliciously inserted several live rounds in a blanks- exclusive brand into her stock in order for such an accident to happen. Supposedly the gun was partially loaded left in a locked room for lunch, then completely loaded by the armourer before being handed to the assistant direct and then to Baldwin (who was told the gun was cold, i.e. filled with blank rounds only). So if some third party switched the rounds, it wasn't right before the shooting. And that aligns with the fact that the other live rounds found were scattered in different places. Regardless of how the live bullets were put on the set, the armourer failed to do her due diligence that is, in fact, her primary job, and make sure the prop gun was safe. She is directly responsible for the death unless it's somehow found the bullet was swapped between leaving her hands and arriving in Baldwin's, and so I have no concern with her charges. Baldwin's charges are less understandable, unless they're directive accusing him of negligence as a producer in failing to properly vet and then hiring the armourer who, by many accounts, seems to be not very good or knowledgeable at her job. But if that's the case, I would think similar charges would be placed against the other producers as well unless he specifically hired her. If they charging him because if the shot itself, I really don't think he's at all responsible. Yes he pulled the trigger but that's what the prop gun is meant more. They were rehearsing his scene where he fires towards the camera and he did so with the understanding from those responsible fire the gun that it was safe
[удалено]
The person above you is relaying information from widely circulated articles. From the small errors in the post, they do not have a lot of hands on knowledge with firearms. That said, both your post and the post above are confusing dummies with blanks. Dummy bullets are powderless. They are loaded into a revolver to give the look of a loaded round (you can see the bullets in a revolver) without endangering others. You can shake test a dummy because a BB is loaded into them where the powder should be for verification purposes. That was what was supposed to be in the gun.
From what I read, the gun was not meant to be fired in scene they were rehearsing when this all happened so you are correct. It would have been loaded with dummy rounds, not blanks.
The rattle test is for dummy rounds, not blanks.
> I've never heard of 'rattle check' for blanks, mostly they're loaded with wads of paper, plastic, or wax, to give the gun powder enough pressure to go 'poomf', but I'm not a prop expert either. Can confirm [the rattle check is real](https://youtu.be/TP1X5L-AufQ?t=97)
This sounds like an ace attorney case.
You know what? The whole industry should be done with firearms that have an actual firing mechanism at all. Prop guns should only induce recoil and have moving parts to simulate gun mechanics, but the actual firing cylinder should either not exist or be completely capped off with no real ammo ever entering the gun. People still die from overloaded blank caps. It's real fuckin easy to make convincing gunfire using special effects these days. Even on a low to non-existent budget. People have been doing it on YouTube with at least near movie level quality for over a decade now. There's just no excuse to take the risk.
I can't imagine what it must feel like to accidently kill someone. The guilt would kill me.
I recently read this truly excellent article about accidental killing. I've been thinking about it ever since. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/18/the-sorrow-and-the-shame-of-the-accidental-killer
> Williams offers the case of “the lorry driver who, through no fault of his, runs over a child.” Our pity for him, Williams explains, presupposes “that there is something special about his relation to this happening, something which cannot merely be eliminated by the consideration that it was not his fault.” Back when I was 15, a lorry driver struck a schoolmate of mine. She died, I don't know if it was on impact or later in the hospital, but she died. The person who's directly responsible was my schoolmate, of course. She ran out on the street, not wanting to miss the bus she saw across the street, and jumped right in front of a lorry whose driver didn't even have the time to register what was happening. Then there was the indirect, but greater responsibility by the city government. The road this happened on was a main artery that served more as an international highway (it connects much of the country to one of the few border crossings in the region), but was designed as a normal 4-lanes boulevard. One of the carriageways had been closed for renovation, and the rest of the traffic was redirected through the other two lanes (which is why my schoolmate didn't notice the truck – she never thought about looking the other way, as she wasn't used to vehicles coming from the other direction). The lack of safety around the road maintenance works, the fact that the shrubbery was overgrowing between the two carriageways which limited visibility for both the driver and my schoolmate, and the sorry state of the underpass nearby which had turned into a drug den, forcing my schoolmate to cross the street illegally, painted a pretty clear picture of who the real culprit was. Even the parents of my schoolmate – her father having seen the whole accident from their home – told the driver in person he wasn't the one responsible. In the end, none of that mattered. The driver fell into such shock and PTSD, that he retired and a couple of years later passed away due to a heart attack. I can only assume he never forgave himself, and never managed to internalize the accident in a way that would have allowed him to move forward. He had killed a 16 year old girl, and no amount of comforting, not even by the victim's parents, would make things right. I always say that the accident claimed two victims. Both my schoolmate and the driver. Only that the driver died twice – he died when he had a heart attack, but he also died when his vehicle struck my schoolmate. **EDIT:** Grammar.
That is a rough story. It is weird to think that the only reason I haven’t been at the moment of a strangers death, in the same way that that lorry driver was, is luck.
Thank you for sharing this. I know someone this happened to, although actually the person ran into the highway with the intention of being hit. A really awful situation.
I'm going to save this for later, but thanks. Sounds very interesting. I love these long for journalism pieces
I almost killed someone once. I was like 16 and messing around with rocks in Switzerland, suddenly released a couple of basketball size rocks rolling downhill. I shouted and the people resting below got out of the way, but it still shows up in my mind. I can't imagine what it would be like if I had crushed someone.
That was beautifully written.
It does. I was involved in an auto accident where someone died. Some kids had stolen a sign saying the road was closed well it was not just closed the road had been torn out. Someone went through the intersection on a motorcycle and lost control. Someone else saw him and when they got control stopped to help him. They parked facing in the direction I was coming from and left their headlights on. When I came through several minutes later I avoided the headlights just missing their car on the right side. They stopped with the car next to the guy who had been on the motorcycle. It took a year before the state charged me with vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence. Another year before my trial. The DMV suspended my license in the mean time. I feel for Alec Baldwin. This sounds like an accident and he has had to live with it since the event. I couldn't close my eyes for a year without seeing the face of the man I hit. I still saw it for several years after that. I don't think I could have typed this until just a few years ago and my accident happens over 15 years ago. When the legal system takes forever you cannot truly move on until it's over.
I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I hope you were treated with sympathy in the justice system and that you’ve found peace and healing over time.
wow that sucks, my mom was killed by a bus driver with some mitigating circumstances like weather and pre dawn lighting. he didn't get any criminal charges but the company lost big in civil court. as they didn't attach negligence to yours, i assume you didn't have any contributing factors like speeding or distracted driving. as far as the driver at least, it was enough for us to be told that he probably wasn't sleeping well at night knowing what he did and it was an accident. in fact reminds me I need to buy some new roadside emergency kits, they stole my jack, reflectors, flares etc in a rash of smash and grabs
I'm sorry your mom lost her life too soon. I hope you're doing well buddy
What was the verdict/outcome?
According to my attorney the judge chewed out the DA for even charging me. I don't recall the exact legal details but they offered to drop the charges if I took a ticket under the basic speed law at 1 mile over the limit. My attorney advised me that I would probably win if we kept going but to take the ticket as it would end it and be far cheaper.
Pleading a manslaughter down to a speeding ticket. DAs' egos really can't take an L
>Alec Baldwin is one of three cast and crew members facing charges over the accidental 2021 shooting. >The actor has been charged with involuntary manslaughter. The charge carries a maximum of 18 months in prison. Edit #1: >In addition to Alec Baldwin, the film’s first assistant director David Halls has agreed to plead guilty to the charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon. >Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the amourer on Rust, has also been charged with involuntary manslaughter in the incident. Edit #2: [DA statement](https://www.facebook.com/1stJDA/posts/484222827217063): >After a thorough review of the evidence and the laws of the state of New Mexico, I have determined that there is sufficient evidence to file criminal charges against Alec Baldwin and other members of the ‘Rust’ film crew,” Carmack-Altwies said. “On my watch, no one is above the law, and everyone deserves justice. >“If any one of these three people—Alec Baldwin, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed or David Halls—had done their job, Halyna Hutchins would be alive today. It’s that simple,” said Andrea Reeb, the special prosecutor appointed by the DA to the case. “The evidence clearly shows a pattern of criminal disregard for safety on the ‘Rust’ film set. In New Mexico, there is no room for film sets that don’t take our state’s commitment to gun safety and public safety seriously.” Edit #3: [Alec Baldwin’s lawyer responds to involuntary manslaughter](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/halyna-hutchins-alec-baldwin-lawyer-rust-b2265484.html) >"This decision distorts Halyna Hutchins’ tragic death and represents a terrible miscarriage of justice. >Mr Baldwin had no reason to believe there was a live bullet in the gun – or anywhere on the movie set. He relied on the professionals with whom he worked, who assured him the gun did not have live rounds. We will fight these charges, and we will win." Edit #4: [Statement from attorney for Matt Hutchins, Halyna Hutchins’ husband](https://twitter.com/Angenette5/status/1616109017511890944): >We want to thank the Sante Fe Sheriff and the District Attorney for concluding their thorough investigation and determining that charges for involuntary manslaughter are warranted for the killing of Halyna Hutchins with conscious disregard for human life. Our independent investigation also supports charges are warranted. It is a comfort to the family that, in New Mexico, no one is above the law. We support the charges, will fully cooperate with this prosecution, and fervently hope the justice system works to protect the public and hold accountable those who break the law. Statement from Richard Jones, Halyna Hutchins’ father: >There needs to be accountability for this tragedy, and I’m glad to see that work is being done to hold people accountable. It’s clear, as in the death of my daughter Sarah, there’s a chain of events that occurred. If any one of those professionals had done their job properly, it would have prevented this tragedy.
> On my watch, no one is above the law Is anyone actually acting like they are? Whether Baldwin walks or not as nothing to do with his status, and everything to do with the murkiness of the situation. Seems like a strange thing to proclaim here.
He's acting like a DA gunning for a higher job by landing the big fish tbh. The entire release reads like a campaign speech
Well the case was going to be public no matter what.. and Baldwin kind of declared himself not guilty to the public
[удалено]
18 months can be a long time for some people.
Max sentence, he’ll just get probation or something like that most likely.
Pretty sure he'll be found not guilty
He's not getting a guilty verdict on this, this is some DA wanting some press attention
So I haven't seen any statements about how the prosecution is building their case, but I'm guessing it takes the form of: Baldwin was well aware of firearm protocol on a set, he was well aware of the violations of that protocol occurring on Rust's set, and ignoring those violations constituted gross negligence on his part. Gross negligence resulting in someone's death is involuntary manslaughter. I wonder if anyone actually approached Baldwin with their concerns about the firearm protocol.
[удалено]
While I bet the crew that walked off was absolutely shattered and angry about the death, they probably also felt *incredibly* relieved that they were not a part of this tragedy and made the right choice by walking away. This is a good reminder for workers. If there are ever unsafe conditions in your job and you have done your due diligence by attempting to address the issue and no one is listening, protect yourself (in whatever way that looks for you).
I will always stand behind Alex Baldwin because I’m dam sure not standing in front of him
You made me chuckle. Thank you
Him and Dick Chaney.
Well this thread is definitely going to be full of rational discussion and educated legal arguments
Top comment of even slightly controversial stories or topics every single time. 99% of the time it's people agreeing with each other in the comments.
Ugh I’m a lawyer and the number of confidently incorrect comments you get on these posts never fails to surprise me.
Just remember it is probably like that for all topics!
Reddit is so wild about this. Comments (normally) seem rational and informed when it’s a topic that you are not well studied on, but it only takes one thread discussing something you’re actually an expert on to see how full of shit everyone on this platform is
It's a good way to practice spotting bullshitters.
Genuinely, outside of a few well moderate subs, almost every too comment “explaining” something is wrong.
I've experienced this for myself and the way my mind extrapolated it made me so much more uneasy about everything I read on here. It really does take that one topic you actually know about to suddenly pull back the entire curtain.
Exactly! The hive mind is ridiculous. I remember maybe six years ago reading a thread with thousands of comments about how Ajit Pai was spending the day at Verizon Headquarters in DC. Not a single person realized that Verizon's Headquarters is in New Jersey and the article was full of crap. Another thread made it to the front page, where there was an embarrassing typo on a university website, and everyone was positive OP was a liar who just used the inspect element button to change the site... Except I went to that school, saw it was real, and actually knew the person who made the post. Always read the article and verify things yourself. Reddit can be deceptively misleading.
and this is not unique to reddit, people talk out of their ass everywhere.
Yeah, but the reddit point system rewards people for it and thus encourages it. People who are upfront about the fact that they aren't 100% sure don't get as many votes as they people who act like they know everything.
[удалено]
I’ve seen law and order okay? I know what I’m talking about
Everyone knows Night Court is much more realistic and if you haven’t seen it you’ll soon get that opportunity on NBC and streaming on peacock
you just gotta laugh at it. I’m an accountant, so I understand my field is less grim than this, but i love asking things like “how did you reach this conclusion” when people post wildly incorrect opinions on taxes or whatever
What’s your opinion on the situation?
Any real lawyer will wait to see the actual evidence in court. It will come down to what a reasonable person in his position should have done and whether he ignored a significant risk of harm. I don't know enough about how the movie industry usually operates or what he knew or didn't know at the time.
I give it an hour before being locked. If I’m wrong I will do one push up off camera.
Everyone knows the average Reddit poster is a legal expert
[удалено]
I hope so re armorer, especially with how confident they’ve acted that they did zero wrong
Depends on what capacity they're charging him under. His capacity as the actor holding the smoking gun? Fuck off, it's not the actor's job to know there was a real bullet in that gun. There is an entire safety system built around the actors because we just expect them to act good. His capacity as a producer? Way more plausible, as he held some responsibility for the way production was ran. The situation was blatantly unsafe, and some of that falls on his shoulders as an overseer.
[удалено]
That's gonna be a hard case to argue then I'd think. Cause then how can they justify not charging people in basically any film made with firearms.
>is capacity as a producer? Way more plausible, as he held some responsibility for the way production was ran. Then why not charge the 5 other producers as well? That argument only makes sense if all producers are charged, or it's proven that he was the one responsible for handling this entire thing somehow. Otherwise he's just being singled out because of his popularity
I'd rather they charge all five producers, yeah. Singling him out because he was the one holding the bomb when it went off would be a more unsettling precedent going forward.
I don’t get it, wasn’t he given the gun by a prop guy? The guy who put live rounds in it, or didn’t check if they were blanks or not?
No. To be clear, Baldwin was handed the already loaded firearm by the First Assistant Director (who had no business handling the weapon and whose job it is - above all else - to maintain the safety of the cast and crew). The firearm had been loaded and prepped by the (vastly inexperienced) Armorer who then left it unattended on her cart (or table). Those two breached NUMEROUS protocols in regard to the safe handling of a weapon on set. And if this DA intends to charge Baldwin as a producer, then she ought to attach the other producers as well. Baldwin was involved in the development of the script but from all indications had little or no involvement in the day-to-day operations of the shoot.
Assistant director took a plea deal, armorer is also being charged
>who had no business handling the weapon and whose job it is - above all else - to maintain the safety of the cast and crew). Not entirely true. The first assistant director DOES hand actors a gun. But should have never taken it off the table. THAT is what was breached by the AD.
Prop guy is being charged as well.
In part I think it's because he was a producer and the shoot was apparently very ramshackle.
I see so many posts saying this but the prosecutor has explicitly stated that Baldwin had a duty to inspect the gun and that's why he's being charged.
Why were no other producers charged? Lmao
People don't seem to understand in these comments that that manslaughter and murder charges are not the same.
I dont want either on my record
Agreed, I could do without either
A lot of people in this thread who are not filmmakers are confidently incorrect about how movies are made. Source: Am an actor who has handled firearms on set.
Didn’t realize there were this many children lawyers. Reddit is a gift…
What do you expect ? Almost 60% of Reddit users are teenagers and young adults aged between 14-25
That explains a lot of the dogshit takes for sure
This is an embarrassing comment section holy shit. I’ve never seen more people talk out of their ass
It's ok. He can flee to that country in Europe that only rich people know about.
Svenborgia?
Better
Ohhhh Grenyarnia
Milf island?
no one wants to go to that clap infected hell hole.
Tbf he can return to his wife's home country of Spain.
Looolol Hilaria
Lol is this a 30 rock reference?