The aftermath of an avoidable tragedy

January 19, 2023 7:07 PM

New Mexico prosecutors have decided to charge actor Alec Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reedwith with involuntary manslaughter in the death of Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie, Rust. [gift NY Times link]

The investigation took over a year. The film’s first assistant director, Dave Halls, who handed Baldwin the gun, agreed to a plea deal on a charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon.

Previously. And another dangerous film set.

posted by hydra77 (177 comments total)

I have a lot of conflicting thoughts on this, but I'm not sure Baldwin as the actor in this position should be held responsible. I do think that he as a producer, along with the other producers should be.
posted by hydra77 at 7:12 PM on January 19, 2023 [15 favorites]

This event was a totally avoidable tragedy. That gun was the responsibility of two people: the armorer and the AD. They let one of those two people plea to parole so they could charge someone (Baldwin) who is not responsible. Film sets are places of clearly defined roles and responsibilities. It has never been an actor’s responsibility to clear a fire arm. That is not their job. They are actors. An armorer is supposed to be an expert in whatever weapons are being used on set. The AD is responsible for many things, one of the most important of which is safety on set. The actor acts.
posted by matt_od at 7:13 PM on January 19, 2023 [70 favorites]

Yeah, but he’s been a suspiciously liberal actor, so y’know, one does what one must.
posted by aramaic at 7:17 PM on January 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

As annoying as Baldwin's public statements are about this, it's really nuts to me to think that he could be found culpable here. Why would an actor know anything about guns or have any expectation of verifying the safety of the gun someone handed to them to play/rehearse a scene? The chain of people who handled the gun before they handed it to him and told him it was "cold", sure. But Baldwin?

There is this whole thing about how he was a producer, and yes then I guess there is some responsibility, but not in the manslaughter sense.

To me this would be like if a magician called someone up on stage to do the saw-a-lady-in-half bit and they used the saw, and the magician had accidentally used the box that actually saws the lady in half, not the trick box, and then you charge the guy who was called up on stage with manslaughter. Would it matter if he was also the owner of the venue and the guy who fronted money to the magician to make the show happen? He'd be right to say: but I never imagined it could be a box that actually saws ladies in half. There isn't supposed to be such a box! Similarly, it would never even occur to me to think that they would put *real bullets* in a gun for a movie scene. Like why would you even have them on the set at all??
posted by dis_integration at 7:18 PM on January 19, 2023 [24 favorites]

I had a crazy Berenstain Bears moment where I thought that his name had actually been Alex Baldwin all this time.
posted by Drowsy Philosopher at 7:19 PM on January 19, 2023 [8 favorites]

It has never been an actor’s responsibility to clear a fire arm. That is not their job. They are actors.

It probably should be going forward? I mean I think nobody should ever handle a gun who hasn't been trained in gun safety. Maybe actors will just have to take a safety course and know they are ultimately responsible for that gun.

Also, in a world when actors are constantly running around in ping pong ball pajamas to do a bit of CGI, why is there any need for an actual gun on a set? Is that normal? Is it just that this was a low budget film? Can they not recreate a gun with technology? Seems like maybe that's an easy problem to solve in 2023. But I don't know anything about guns or CGI.
posted by bondcliff at 7:27 PM on January 19, 2023 [17 favorites]

How is an actor who is told to point a gun at a camera operator and pull the trigger any less culpable than someone at a shooting range who does the same thing? Why does gun on a film set indemnify actors of having a responsibility for the fire arm in their hand? It's still a real gun!
posted by thecjm at 7:28 PM on January 19, 2023 [6 favorites]

> Why would an actor know anything about guns or have any expectation of verifying the safety of the gun someone handed to them to play/rehearse a scene?

Because that's the reasonable person standard when someone hands you a firearm.

From the article:

> “The prosecutor’s contention that an actor has a duty to ensure the functional and mechanical operation of a firearm on a production set is wrong and uninformed,” the union said. “An actor’s job is not to be a firearms or weapons expert.”

If you are going to be handed a real firearm and pull the trigger of it, you are responsible for whether it's safe. If that means that you need serious training before you can play in a violent movie, so be it. I don't care if the actors would like to not have to take responsibility for their actions.
posted by madhadron at 7:29 PM on January 19, 2023 [26 favorites]

How is an actor who is told to point a gun at a camera operator and pull the trigger any less culpable than someone at a shooting range who does the same thing?
Those two aren’t supposed to be comparable. Shooting ranges have an abundance of live ammunition. A film set shouldn’t have live ammo anywhere remotely within the vicinity. The people who were responsible for that distinction failed. They are the ones responsible for this tragedy.
posted by matt_od at 7:36 PM on January 19, 2023 [33 favorites]

Baldwin is culpable as a producer because he had the experience to know that the safety protocols on set were totally fucked compared to the big-budget films he's acted in. Safety was so bad, the union crew walked off.

Baldwin should have known how unsafe the set was, and he should have used his power as a producer and big-name star to get it fixed. He did not.
posted by ryanrs at 7:36 PM on January 19, 2023 [77 favorites]

If you are going to be handed a real firearm and pull the trigger of it, you are responsible for whether it's safe.

My comment from the last time this tragedy was on MetaFilter still stands:

The actor should have the expectation that they can rely on the work of their fellow professionals around them.

Is Baldwin also expected to investigate rigging, go over electrical safety with the lighting crew, and make sure the transportation trucks have had their brakes checked? Any of those things could contain flaws that could kill crew members, but if one of those went wrong on a set you wouldn't blame the actor.

Can they not recreate a gun with technology? Seems like maybe that's an easy problem to solve in 2023. But I don't know anything about guns or CGI.

Spielberg couldn't convincingly remove guns from the re-release of E.T., and that was with time, budget and all the skills of Industrial Light & Magic at his disposal. Maybe mid-budget indie films can, I dunno, maybe this year we can get some weird graphical gun-placing AI to do it, I guess?

Alec Baldwin the actor cannot and shouldn't be criminally responsible for this, but Alec Baldwin the executive producer of Rust is probably facing a hefty civil lawsuit.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 7:39 PM on January 19, 2023 [34 favorites]

They let one of those two people plea to parole so they could charge someone (Baldwin) who is not responsible.

Well, not directly responsible (as a producer he may bear some indirect responsibility. Producer can mean a bunch of different things)

Which raises the question of what the prosecutors needed to cut a deal for? What did they gain there?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:41 PM on January 19, 2023 [4 favorites]

Yeah, if the rigging collapsed twice in the last month, or the union crew refused to drive any of the trucks because they were so bad, then yes Baldwin (and the 1st AD, and other producers) should have stopped and figured out wtf was going on.

This wasn't the first negligent discharge on set. I think is was the 3rd one?
posted by ryanrs at 7:44 PM on January 19, 2023 [13 favorites]

>> Why would an actor know anything about guns or have any expectation of verifying
>> the safety of the gun someone handed to them to play/rehearse a scene?
>
>Because that's the reasonable person standard when someone hands you a firearm.

I agree that a reasonable person would check if a weapon is loaded or not, but I'm not sure I would hold someone responsible for checking the ammunition. I'm not sure I wouldn't hold them responsible either, but it's definitely not part of my standard "someone has handed me a gun, let me check its status" routine.

In any case I suspect the charge against Baldwin will be about set safety.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:44 PM on January 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

In any case I suspect the charge against Baldwin will be about set safety.

Then why not the director? Why not every above the line talent that survived?
posted by matt_od at 7:49 PM on January 19, 2023

Is Baldwin also expected to investigate rigging, go over electrical safety with the lighting crew, and make sure the transportation trucks have had their brakes checked? Any of those things could contain flaws that could kill crew members, but if one of those went wrong on a set you wouldn't blame the actor.

Rigging and lighting and trucks aren't designed to kill people first and foremost, and are being repurposed from that task via substitution or modification. Handguns on a movie set are. That's the difference.

Gun Safety 101 is NEVER POINT A GUN AT SOMEONE YOU DO NOT INTEND TO SHOOT EVEN IF YOU ARE SURE IT IS NOT LOADED yet actors in action movies get a free pass on this every single day.
posted by thecjm at 7:52 PM on January 19, 2023 [8 favorites]

Don't forget that the crew was screaming that the set was unsafe long before Hutchins was shot. Everyone on the management side (dunno what the industry term is) bears responsibility.
posted by ryanrs at 7:53 PM on January 19, 2023 [12 favorites]

There’s a lot of folks that seem to have a distinct misunderstanding of what a producer credit means. A producer can be very hands on but it is not necessarily so, especially in low budget flicks such as this one. A big name actor may sign on as a producer while accepting a lower salary than they’re accustomed to so they can collect more points on the back end if the film ends up making money. Just because Baldwin was signed on as a producer does not mean he was involved in the day to day running of the set.
posted by matt_od at 7:58 PM on January 19, 2023 [22 favorites]

I don’t know what the safety protocols are but it seems like at the very least, when the gun is handed out to an actor, both parties should check together, with a little ceremony to ensure focus
posted by condour75 at 7:58 PM on January 19, 2023 [6 favorites]

…with a little ceremony to ensure focus

The handing off is supposed to happen between the armorer and the assistant director. And then there is a literal ceremony where the AD presents the weapon to the actor in front of the entire cast and crew and declares it a cold gun. Which is exactly what happened in this case. The AD declared it cold and handed it to Baldwin.
posted by matt_od at 8:03 PM on January 19, 2023 [46 favorites]

Also, digital effects aside, I feel like it should be possible to invent a safety prop gun. Make sure it can’t take actual rounds by modifying the chamber, and create a special round designed to mimic a shot fired but without nearly as much force as a blank, and no paper. Smoke and flame heavy. Get the sound right in foley or however they do it now
posted by condour75 at 8:03 PM on January 19, 2023 [6 favorites]

Still, the actor should be trained how to check and be part of the ceremony. I get it’s not their job but safety should be everyone’s job.
posted by condour75 at 8:05 PM on January 19, 2023 [5 favorites]

there's something weird going on here about "gun safety" that doesn't seem right to me. This isn't like you've been handed a gun on the street and told not to worry it's not loaded. Of course you should verify that the gun is not loaded in that case. Here there is an armorer and after the armorer an assistant director, two people whose job it is to ensure the safety of the set, which in this case means ensuring the gun does not have live rounds in it. They're there so that you don't have to rely on random actors, props people, everyone else for ensuring safety. The whole point is to ensure safety by doing gun safety 502 or whatever: advanced gun safety where there's literally a person whose job is gun safety who is a gun expert there to ensure nobody else has to worry about gun safety.

Is the argument that even when shooting blanks, the actor should remove each round from the gun to confirm it is not in fact a live round? At the start of every scene? They shoot 50 takes and every time you remove every bullet and examine it to ensure it is a blank?
posted by dis_integration at 8:06 PM on January 19, 2023 [20 favorites]

They shoot 50 takes and every time you remove every bullet and examine it to ensure it is a blank?

Yes. Because if you don’t, then someone might die.
posted by Etrigan at 8:07 PM on January 19, 2023 [26 favorites]

then there is a literal ceremony where the AD presents the weapon to the actor in front of the entire cast and crew and declares it a cold gun

IIRC, the 1st AD was obviously, expressively disdainful of that particular ceremony.

Man, this is making me want to go dig up quotes and stuff. There was a lot of gossip about what a piece of shit the 1st AD was, how he had zero respect for safety rules, only budget and schedule.
posted by ryanrs at 8:11 PM on January 19, 2023 [12 favorites]

Rigging and lighting and trucks aren't designed to kill people first and foremost, and are being repurposed from that task via substitution or modification. Handguns on a movie set are. That's the difference.

This seems like splitting hairs to me? I mean, if someone does a little ceremony to demonstrate that a gun is not loaded and then hands it to you, that doesn't seem very different from someone doing a little ceremony to demonstrate that your rigging is secure before hanging you from it two stories up. You have to trust them either way, because they know what they're doing with the gun/rigging and you do not.

That the gun is designed to take life and the rigging is designed to preserve it doesn't make much difference. Either one will kill you dead if your expert is negligent.
posted by billjings at 8:13 PM on January 19, 2023 [13 favorites]

I think the dynamic was there were de facto only two non-union people who could stand up to the 1st AD and force him to fix safety on set. Baldwin was one, and the other was Hutchins. If either had sided with the crew, filming could not have continued.
posted by ryanrs at 8:15 PM on January 19, 2023 [11 favorites]

then there is a literal ceremony where the AD presents the weapon to the actor in front of the entire cast and crew and declares it a cold gun

IIRC, the 1st AD was obviously, expressively disdainful of that particular ceremony.

I remember that. He was the real villain from the prior reporting on this story, right?

And IIRC from reading TFA, he is called out as having made a plea deal.

Maybe Baldwin is organizationally complicit! Maybe that's why the plea deal happened. It hardly seems like there's any reason to make a deal if they're just going after Baldwin on the basis of the fact that he pulled the trigger.
posted by billjings at 8:16 PM on January 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

From the Previously, on Dave Halls, the AD:

Maggie Goll, an IATSE Local 44 prop maker and licensed pyrotechnician, said in a statement to CNN that while working on Hulu's "Into the Dark" Anthology Series in February and May of 2019, Halls neglected to hold safety meetings and consistently failed to announce the presence of a firearm on set to the crew, as is protocol.

"The only reason the crew was made aware of a weapon's presence was because the assistant prop master demanded Dave acknowledge and announce the situation each day," Goll's statement reads...The Prop Master frequently admonished Dave for dismissing the talent without returning props, weapon included, or failing to make safety announcements."

...A crew member who also worked in the productions but requested to not be named for fear of retaliation corroborated Goll's accounts, saying that when Halls did hold safety meetings, they were short and he was dismissive, saying the guns used would be the same as the production always uses, and questioning why they'd have to hold the meetings in the first place. The crew member also said Halls complained about having a gun "cleared" (inspected by a licensed professional on set, such as an armorer) for a scene where an actress would aim the gun to her own head and pull the trigger.
posted by away for regrooving at 8:17 PM on January 19, 2023 [16 favorites]

If I were going to go up in rigging, if I saw something that looked wrong I would ask about it, and I would make it a point to make sure it looked at least basically sensible. And checking the gun is not as complicated, so the redundancy is not going to slow you down that much.

I mean a simpler way to think about it is from the point of view of the shot person. If someone is pointing a gun at me, I want the guy pulling the trigger to verify it, at the very least
posted by condour75 at 8:24 PM on January 19, 2023

What about pyrotechnics? If the actor is given a button that will trigger an explosion, and it ends up being much more powerful than expected, killing members of the crew, was it the actors responsibility to inspect the explosives to ensure they were safe, that everyone involved was at a safe distance etc.? Seems like that's the job of the pyrotechnics crew. There's something about the fact that guns are so common in american life that seems to be influencing the thought process here. Like everyone should know about guns and how they work and when they're safe or not safe. And I agree that if you are not in the context of a whole organization that has procedures in place that are supposed to ensure the safety of the situation, you would be culpable. If I was *not* on a movie set and someone said: here set off this bomb, I would be to blame for whatever damage the bomb does. But when the pyro crew tells me the bomb they've built will just be a big flash and not a big explosion,don't worry, set off the bomb, i'd trust them, since that's the whole point of their job. Now replace pyro with armorer and bomb with gun. Anyway, I guess I'll back off of this now since I don't have much more to add.
posted by dis_integration at 8:24 PM on January 19, 2023 [26 favorites]

I mean, it seems like there's two questions here:

1. When we imagine an ideal world, should an actor take steps to make sure, individually and each time, that a prop gun is not loaded with live ammunition, regardless of what other processes are in place and who else has inspected the gun?

2. Did Baldwin, following normal film set gun safety procedures, fail to do something that he would normally be expected, in our world, to do on a film set?

My understanding here is that while standard practices may be insufficient and this film set may not have been especially safe, Baldwin was doing what actors conventionally do - that is, assume that the prop gun that has been cleared by the person responsible for guns on set is in fact safe to use.

I am not wild about the idea that there's the official gun-handling rules that actors are supposed to follow and then someone is also culpable if they follow the official rules but fail to do extra checks. If the standard procedures are insufficient, they should be changed, but expecting actors to control for the inadequacy of standard procedures off their own bat seems like it will not produce consistent, safe results.
posted by Frowner at 8:25 PM on January 19, 2023 [42 favorites]

Unless there are facts that haven't come out, this is going to be a near-impossible conviction, and I'm not sure why they felt the need to make such a reach. They already got the AD.

The definition of involuntary manslaughter in New Mexico is:

manslaughter committed in the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to felony, or in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death in an unlawful manner or without due caution and circumspection

With the caveat that I haven't done a ton of research on NM criminal law, this seems to require that the prosecution show that he acted "without due caution or circumspection." I tend to doubt that a jury will think someone who was handed a gun inspected by a professional and declared directly to him to be cold in the same way he'd been handed actually cold guns repeatedly over the decades of his career was acting without due caution to a truly criminal level. Other alleged sloppiness on the set didn't contribute to the death and shouldn't even be admissible.
posted by praemunire at 8:28 PM on January 19, 2023 [8 favorites]

I mean, it seems like there's two questions here:
...
2. Did Baldwin, following normal film set gun safety procedures, fail to do something that he would normally be expected, in our world, to do on a film set?

There is at least one other question: Does Baldwin have any culpability in his role as a producer? Does anyone else in management have culpability? But maybe those would be civil issues instead of criminal issues.
posted by NotLost at 8:34 PM on January 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

(By the way, I am not a gun person whatsoever, nor an Alec Baldwin person--he's loathsome--but I hope everyone declaring that extra procedures should be taken, etc., never, ever takes any shortcuts on driving safety. Like, say, looking at their phone while driving. Which is almost certainly a more dangerous act than pulling the trigger on a gun that's not supposed to be loaded and was confirmed by a professional not to be.)
posted by praemunire at 8:35 PM on January 19, 2023 [10 favorites]

I'm not going to go over Alec Baldwin's IMDB page, but this cannot be the first time he's ever shot a gun in a movie, right? He is probably not a fresh noob to the concept? He has decades of experience acting and I doubt this is his first gun shoot. Possibly his first Western or his first as some kind of titled producer, but I'd be very surprised if he never, ever touched a gun before this movie.

I find it really odd to think that I've gone to a shooting range ONCE and I apparently still have more training in proper gun safety than Alec Baldwin. Even I know to check if there's bullets in the gun and don't point it at people--albeit this is literally his job in the movie to point it at people, so I don't know what to say there. I'm not sure if you can argue that he should have known better or learned something about proper gun safety* ahead of time, but god knows it could not have hurt for him to have some knowledge ahead of time. Whether or not you should hold him liable in this case, fuck if I know. As a producer, perhaps. As an actor being handed a gun he was told was cold, I don't know but kinda lean towards no.

* something I think would probably behoove all actors in gunfight movies to do, especially now.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:36 PM on January 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

In my mind, Baldwin--as an actor--had much less culpability than the AD or the Armorer. But because of his experience in big films and power as a star actor, his responsibility is magnified. I wouldn't assign nearly as much blame if it was a young, inexperienced actor that had pulled the trigger.

Halls really dodged justice on this one.
posted by ryanrs at 8:38 PM on January 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

Because that's the reasonable person standard when someone hands you a firearm.

That's not how safety or worksite protocols work at all.
posted by mhoye at 8:39 PM on January 19, 2023 [8 favorites]

From another NYT article on the topic: "“Baldwin believed, based on prior gun safety training he received on movie sets, that actors should not unilaterally check guns for live ammunition,” Mr. Nikas wrote in the lawsuit. “If actors want to check a gun for their own peace of mind, they should check the gun only with the armorer closely supervising the process.”
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:40 PM on January 19, 2023 [10 favorites]

I tend to doubt that a jury will think someone who was handed a gun inspected by a professional and declared directly to him to be cold in the same way he'd been handed actually cold guns repeatedly over the decades of his career was acting without due caution to a truly criminal level

Trial will be in Santa Fe, I imagine? Lots of gun owners in Santa Fe. Look at how gun owners here have assigned blame. Every gun owner is going to think "I wouldn't have made that mistake". This will be a tough crowd for an A-list LA actor.

(I'm not condoning this dynamic, but it's there, I bet.)
posted by ryanrs at 8:43 PM on January 19, 2023 [8 favorites]

I find it really odd to think that I've gone to a shooting range ONCE and I apparently still have more training in proper gun safety than Alec Baldwin.

They're not comparable situations, for what should be obvious reasons. On a range there's no reason to point a gun at anyone, ever. On a set there sometimes is. That's why the protocols exist.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:47 PM on January 19, 2023 [28 favorites]

Basic safety procedures for having guns on a film set (this copy from the Actors Equity Association). Note how many were not followed on this production.

- Use simulated or dummy weapons whenever possible.
- Treat all guns as if they are loaded and deadly.
- Unless you are actually performing or rehearsing, the property master must secure all firearms.
- The property master or armorer should carefully train you in the safe use of any firearm you must handle. Be honest if you have no knowledge about guns. Do not overstate your qualifications.
- Follow all instructions given by the qualified instructor.
- Never engage in horseplay with any firearms or other weapons. Do not let others handle the gun for any reason.
- All loading of firearms must be done by the property master, armorer or experienced persons working under their direct supervision.
- Never point a firearm at anyone including yourself. Always cheat the shot by aiming to the right or left of the target character. If asked to point and shoot directly at a living target, consult with the property master or armorer for the prescribed safety procedures.
- If you are the intended target of a gunshot, make sure that the person firing at you has followed all these safety procedures.
- If you are required to wear exploding blood squibs, make sure there is a bulletproof vest or other solid protection between you and the blast packet.
- Use protective shields for all off stage cast within close proximity to any shots fired.
- Appropriate ear protection should be offered to the cast members and stage managers.
- Check the firearm every time you take possession of it. Before each use, make sure the gun has been test-fired off stage and then ask to test fire it yourself. Watch the prop master check the cylinders and barrel to be sure no foreign object or dummy bullet has become lodged inside.
- Blanks are extremely dangerous. Even though they do not fire bullets out of the gun barrel, they still have a powerful blast than can maim or kill.
-Never attempt to adjust, modify or repair a firearm yourself. If a weapon jams or malfunctions, corrections shall be made only by a qualified person.
- When a scene is completed, the property master shall unload the firearms. All weapons must be cleaned, checked and inventoried after each performance.
- Live ammunition may not be brought into the theatre.
- If you are in a production where shots are to be fired and there is no qualified property master, go to the nearest phone and call Actors' Equity Association. A union representative will make sure proper procedures are followed.
- State and federal safety laws must be honored at all times.
- If any of the above safety tips conflict with the instructions given by a qualified instructor, abide by the instructions from the qualified instructor. If you are still not sure, contact your Equity Business Representative.
posted by Dean358 at 8:52 PM on January 19, 2023 [32 favorites]

Right, but I'm still boggling that he supposedly knew nothing about guns(?) before this incident. I'd think he'd know better than me from shooting them in previous movies at the very least.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:52 PM on January 19, 2023

The attack on Baldwin's reputation on social media outlets seems to approach the level of an unreasonable double-standard, to me, because we have gun massacres on a fairly regular basis in this country (with "real" guns, even) and virtually no one holds gun owners or handlers or even sellers accountable for those actions in any serious way, beyond thoughts and prayers and shrugs.

Color me skeptical about the outrage over this.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:59 PM on January 19, 2023 [39 favorites]

I'm pretty sure they could make a convincing movie without actually aiming any firearm directly at a human.

See: stage combat, where people don't actually get hit hard.

See: any basic stage combat workshop (including one that mostly-non-professional me has taken), where I learned how to make it look like I was slapping someone -- on a stage before a live audience -- even though I didn't actually slap them.

See: any of a number of special effects.

This is something that really needs to stop.
posted by amtho at 9:01 PM on January 19, 2023 [4 favorites]

Why are prop guns even capable of discharging live rounds? This needs to be changed.
posted by Stu-Pendous at 9:03 PM on January 19, 2023 [8 favorites]

And here are the fully detailed rules for firearms on a film set. These are long established safety procedures, many of which appear to have been simply ignored.

IATSE Safety bulletin #1

IATSE Saftey Bulletin #2

IATSE Saftey Bulletin #5
posted by Dean358 at 9:08 PM on January 19, 2023 [7 favorites]

They were not ignored! The union crew walked off set because of the safety violations (and denied hotel rooms, and other complaints) and the production hired non-union crew to continue filming.
posted by ryanrs at 9:13 PM on January 19, 2023 [16 favorites]

While gun-free sets might be the ultimate goal, there are some easier steps to take to ensure gun safety. For example, if you want to do some casual target shooting in the desert, don't use the exact same guns that you're using on set later that day.

Yes, that was reported as happening.
posted by kingdead at 9:15 PM on January 19, 2023 [21 favorites]

I worked on a college theatre production with a weapon that shot blanks, it’s been close to two decades but I remember everyone stagehand and actor had at least two hours of training and a written test, and only the prop master and the ASM ever touched it. All those Equity and IATSE rules don’t seem like they have changed much in the last 20 years.

seems like there was a totally safety breakdown on set.
Hard to put all the blame or even most of the blame on Baldwin the actor.
posted by CostcoCultist at 9:16 PM on January 19, 2023 [4 favorites]

Checking that a gun is clear isn't some arcane art that requires an expert to get right. Someone who's never handled a gun in their life could learn to do it in like ten minutes. It's a simple task on par with checking your car's tire pressure.

While my ten-minute gun-clearing class might not cover every conceivable firearm, it would cover 99% of them, and at least leave you knowing that you don't know how to do the other 1%.
posted by Hatashran at 9:20 PM on January 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

I have family who worked in the movie industry as armourers and props masters for decades until recently retiring. They are not in the slightest bit surprised this happened, and have always strongly recommended to avoid the industry.
posted by Pouteria at 9:22 PM on January 19, 2023 [4 favorites]

This cannot be the first time he's ever shot a gun in a movie, right? He is probably not a fresh noob to the concept? He has decades of experience acting and I doubt this is his first gun shoot.

It wasn't his first time, he's had decades of experience, including with guns, and he followed protocol. The production was a shit show, but he was handed a gun that was specifically identified as a cold gun.

All this "he should have done x," or "the rules should be y" might be very good points, but you shouldn't be able to convict someone for a crime by changing the rules after the fact.
posted by Mavri at 9:23 PM on January 19, 2023 [42 favorites]

The attack on Baldwin's reputation on social media outlets seems to approach the level of an unreasonable double-standard

Probably because nobody knows who Dave Halls is.

The fact that he was allowed to plea bargain despite being the most direct cause of this incident is... troubling.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:24 PM on January 19, 2023 [20 favorites]

While my ten-minute gun-clearing class might not cover every conceivable firearm

Genuinely curious: Does it cover the 45 Colt revolver? (the gun in Rust)
posted by ryanrs at 9:25 PM on January 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

Checking that a gun is clear isn't some arcane art that requires an expert to get right.

I may be misremembering, but I don't think the gun was supposed to be clear. It was supposed to have blanks. Which is why sets have experts and a protocol that Baldwin followed.
posted by Mavri at 9:26 PM on January 19, 2023 [17 favorites]

It amazes me that there's such a stark division of opinions on this. I'm entirely on the side that Baldwin has no criminal liability, unless maybe he had some nexus of responsibility as a producer - like if it could be shown he was responsible for the overall safety issues on the set, he should have fired Dave Halls but didn't, etc.

I feel like some of these takes are saying that he is guilty based on what people think the law and industry practices should be rather than what they currently are.
posted by allegedly at 9:31 PM on January 19, 2023 [38 favorites]

Wikipedia: Rust Shooting Incident it's a surprisingly good and not-surprisingly lengthy article.

And holy shit, I didn't know Hutchins was the SECOND person to be shot in the production of Rust. Someone in the props department shot themselves in the foot with a blank. There were also 2 unintentional discharges that didn't hit anybody.
posted by ryanrs at 9:31 PM on January 19, 2023 [16 favorites]

I may be misremembering, but I don't think the gun was supposed to be clear. It was supposed to have blanks.

You're misremembering. Blanks would have been insane in that shot.
posted by ryanrs at 9:37 PM on January 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

I may be misremembering, but I don't think the gun was supposed to be clear. It was supposed to have blanks.

Not blanks, but dummy cartridges. As it was a revolver, you would be able to see empty chambers if there wasn't something loaded.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:45 PM on January 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

The internet says the gun was supposed to be loaded with blanks or dummy charges. I have no idea if that's insane.
posted by Mavri at 9:46 PM on January 19, 2023

Dummy cartridges make sense. You only need blanks if you're going to fire it, and firing a blank directly at the camera would be extremely bad. They couldn't have been intending to use a blank like that.
posted by ryanrs at 9:53 PM on January 19, 2023

Seems like a pretty straightforward case. Baldwin had a real gun in his hands and shot Halyna with it. She’s dead. He’s got excuses; but so does every person who runs over a pedestrian with their car. Treat every gun like it’s loaded and never point a gun at a person unless you mean to kill them.
posted by interogative mood at 9:58 PM on January 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

my ten-minute gun-clearing class

Genuinely curious: Does it cover the 45 Colt revolver?

If I were actually tasked with putting together a ten-minute gun-clearing curriculum, I'd cover semi-automatics (pull the slide back and look into the chamber) and modern revolvers (swing the cylinder out and look at the chambers), but probably would not cover guns like the 45 Colt, which has a loading door that allows access to one chamber at a time.

But even if you didn't know how to check it, you'd know that you didn't know, and could ask the armorer to show you.

If you'd like to see how the action of the 45 Colt SAA works, you can see a nice YouTube video about it from "Guns of the West". You may wish to view that link in incognito mode to avoid related recommendations over the next few weeks.
posted by Hatashran at 9:58 PM on January 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

A producer can be very hands on but it is not necessarily so

Indeed. Tom Clancy is listed as Executive Producer for the latest Jack Ryan TV series despite having been dead for nearly a decade.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:59 PM on January 19, 2023 [25 favorites]

Seems like a pretty straightforward case. Baldwin had a real gun in his hands

If he was told to drive a "real car" and was assured that it was not a brake-cables-have-been-cut car, and then ran over someone, would you find that as straightforward?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:04 PM on January 19, 2023 [20 favorites]

So to check his gun, Baldwin would have had to look through the loading door to see that a cartridge was in place, but the primer was missing/drilled, indicating it is a dummy cartridge? (I don't know how dummies are marked.)

Then he would need to advance the cylinder and check the next chamber. He would need to do this 6 times.
posted by ryanrs at 10:06 PM on January 19, 2023

I feel like some of these takes are saying that he is guilty based on what people think the law and industry practices should be rather than what they currently are.

The majority of the comments seem to be being made without interest in the actual legal standard here, so, yeah. (Obviously, there is a semi-independent moral standard which can be discussed independent of New Mexico homicide law, but that's not what people have been mostly been going on about.)

Every gun owner is going to think "I wouldn't have made that mistake".

To be outweighed by gun owners' passionate conviction that no white person should ever be held responsible for anything they do with a gun.
posted by praemunire at 10:16 PM on January 19, 2023 [17 favorites]

There wasn't supposed to be any "live" ammo on the Rust set; real bullets from the set of 1883 (the Yellowstone prequel, where actors were training with live ammo to learn authentic 'recoil') appeared to have been mixed in with those rounds: [Last] January, Gutierrez Reed sued Seth Kenney, who supplied most of the guns and ammunition used on “Rust,” alleging that he had negligently mixed dummy and live rounds, leading to the tragedy.
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:17 PM on January 19, 2023 [5 favorites]

Wild to me that so many people think Baldwin should've done more after being handed the gun. Seriously, the person whose job it is to get guns from the armorer and check that they're safe hands you a gun that is supposed to have dummy rounds in it, tells you it's safe, but actually it has at least one live round in it - at that point, I would argue that nobody's in more danger than you are. I find it hard to imagine that anybody here would be agreeing with criminal prosecution of Baldwin if he'd touched the trigger at a slightly earlier point in time and blown his own foot off, but that could've just as easily been the result.

I also have to admit that I find it very odd that the investigation apparently couldn't figure out how live ammunition got on set:

"Ms. Reeb said that aspect of the case was still unclear. “We may never answer that question,” she said."

Considering that there were explanations for how that happened emerging in our previous thread about this over a year ago, it just seems odd to conduct such a lengthy investigation of the incident and then at the end go "Welp! Guess we'll never know how that bullet got there. "

Unless, my inner cynic observes, the explanation for how the live bullet got on set suggests a whole lot of culpability by somebody other than Alec Baldwin, and you really want to prosecute Alec Baldwin.

and I'm not sure why they felt the need to make such a reach.

Why would you want to prosecute a bad case against Alec Baldwin instead of a stronger case against somebody (Halls, perhaps) who nobody has ever heard of? My guess is that somebody in the prosecutor's office has aspirations of holding higher office. (My next guess would be that it's Ms. Reeb, the Republican state legislator & special prosecutor - but that's genuinely just a hunch. We'll see who runs for what offices in 2024.) If you're running as a Republican, getting a ton of free press by being "the prosecutor who went after Alec Baldwin" is basically invaluable, whether or not the prosecution succeeds (since your base is already predisposed to think the justice system is rigged in favor of rich liberal elites, if Baldwin walks, that just means you get to cast yourself as a crusader going against a corrupt system).

I think that's what bothers me most about this turn of events, TBH - Halls, who by most of the accounts I've read is probably the most culpable one here, gets to plea out, probably in exchange for improving the future election chances of someone in the prosecutor's office.
posted by mstokes650 at 10:20 PM on January 19, 2023 [35 favorites]

I may be misremembering

You absolutely are misremembering. A gun isn’t declared cold if it loaded with “hot” blank ammunition.
posted by matt_od at 10:38 PM on January 19, 2023

I think Halls and Gutierrez-Reed are each more culpable than Baldwin, though he is culpable, too.

I don't know how the plea deal went down, but I'm imagining Halls, with the greater culpability, jumping at a deal while Baldwin was still talking strategy with his lawyers, and the DA being all too happy go after the more public defendant. It's pretty crappy, but also pretty plausible.

Or hey, maybe something totally new comes out at trial?
posted by ryanrs at 10:39 PM on January 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

Stagehand here. I do live shows, not film, so I'm speaking a little outside of my context but I've been around long enough to share a little insider perspective. There's an important distinction at the heart of this (very interesting!) conversation that I'd like to bring to the surface.

Gun safety in most contexts is treated as an individual responsibility. No one is gonna make the gun safe at the range but you.

Gun safety on a film set is a collective responsibility. There are a lot of reasons for this. The first one that comes to my mind is that a film set is a highly controlled environment where many people in very specialized roles carry out specific tasks in a very coordinated way to ensure a very specific result. The mentality is that in order to get every little detail right, each task should be done by a person whose entire focus is on that thing. Actors don't check props (including prop guns) because they're focused on a lot of other things. The Armorer does that because weapon safety is their whole job. The AD checks the Armorer's work because maintaining systemic awareness (including safety) of the set is their explicit responsibility.

Drilling down on the actor who shot the gun that fired the bullet on a film set is an understandable reaction, especially given the very individual focus on gun safety in American culture, but doing so misses the point, which is that this is a systemic failure on the part of the whole film crew.

So. Many. Things. had to go wrong for that bullet to end up in the body of that poor person. The prosecutor should've charged a lot more people, starting with that fucking AD. Baldwin should not escape scrutiny, but telephoto focus on his trigger finger is truly a red herring in the context of this colossally lethal bumlblefuck.
posted by Leeway at 10:55 PM on January 19, 2023 [104 favorites]

Following established and normally adequate safety procedures should be a defense to negligence if an accident results -- unless you have reason to think the procedures are not adequate in a particular instance, in which case it seems to me you are responsible for reasonable care even if the procedures wouldn't require it. If you look at the background on the Wikipedia page, you'll see that this production in particular, as well as other productions associated with Hall and Gutierrez-Reed, were dogged by firearm safety issues, including accidental discharges. It seems somewhat foreseeable that (as a crew member on a previous set said) these practices were "going to fucking kill someone someday."

Normally, you're entitled to rely on the division of labor, and only think about the safety responsibilities that the system assigns to you. I assume that on 99% of film sets, everyone fastidiously follows the rules, there are no incidents, and as a result everyone can be confident that, if they just do their part, everything will be fine. But if you have reason to think that the system is not functioning safely, then relying on the system is no longer a good excuse.
posted by grobstein at 11:05 PM on January 19, 2023 [7 favorites]

Every gun owner is going to think "I wouldn't have made that mistake".

I hope Baldwin's defense lawyers understand they're going to be up against this kind of hubris.

There's a long chain of people to blame for not handling the gun properly, including the idiots who were playing with it previously on set.

BTW the Actors Equity guideline is interesting. I wonder how similar SAG's are. And what about non-SAG actors (e.g., background) who might be given a weapon.

The very fact many people could be carrying guns in a scene again argues for responsibility coming back to specific crew members, not individual performers.

But as with any workplace, responsibility also lies with those who run it, who set the tone, and in this case hired the somewhat inexperienced armorer and this really shitty AD. And that may include *producer* Baldwin.

I personally loathe guns in real life, and the excessive glamorization of guns in 100 years of Hollywood.
What a tragedy, the loss of this talented young cinematographer, also mom of a small child, for yet one more stupid shooting scene.
posted by NorthernLite at 12:11 AM on January 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

> In any case I suspect the charge against Baldwin will be about set safety.

Then why not the director? Why not every above the line talent that survived?

Because Baldwin accepted the gun and pulled the trigger despite knowing that proper safety protocols were not being followed on set.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:14 AM on January 20, 2023 [3 favorites]

To add to my comment above, in a brief Google search I can only find a Screen Actors Guild safety doc (in PDF) from 2009. As with the Actors Equity (live stage productions) material someone posted, there are quite a few items. And I assume more restrictions have been discussed the past year.
posted by NorthernLite at 12:28 AM on January 20, 2023

Is the argument that even when shooting blanks, the actor should remove each round from the gun to confirm it is not in fact a live round? At the start of every scene? They shoot 50 takes and every time you remove every bullet and examine it to ensure it is a blank?

There's a distinction between blanks, which still contain a charge and are dangerous to anyone downrange and dummy ammunition which literally does nothing (but would be required in a revolver to look real).

I find it really odd to think that I've gone to a shooting range ONCE and I apparently still have more training in proper gun safety than Alec Baldwin. Even I know to check if there's bullets in the gun and don't point it at people--albeit this is literally his job in the movie to point it at people, so I don't know what to say there.

The issue is that, historically at least, and to some extent still today since CGI isn't perfect, making films requires doing things which are not done under ordinary circumstances. It is a very wise rule to treat every gun as if it is loaded and could go off at any minute but it's also a wise rule not to drive your car at high speeds on mountainous roads or to collide trains into walls, or all kinds of other things that of course you never do except if you want to make it look like you're doing it for a film.

As a result, there is an alternative set of safety rules, essentially a set of multiply redundant checks that cost a lot of money and effort to put in place and which make the otherwise unthinkable act of pointing a gun at someone else a permissible act in certain narrowly defined and controlled circumstances. It seems like the production was incredibly sloppy about those rules, and therefore turned what would otherwise be an acceptable risk into basically the equivalent of Your Buddy Dave waving his gun around the living room. It would be like saying "I can drive at 100mph on this road because at some point, as stunt driver did that" while ignoring the weeks of planning and careful work that went into making that stunt-drive possible.
posted by atrazine at 4:43 AM on January 20, 2023 [20 favorites]

If you've reached the point where you can no longer trust the professionals around you to do their job to a standard that keeps you and the people around you safe, the appropriate response is not "I'll just double check their work every single time and hope that I can catch the issues that they don't," it's "I'm walking off of this job site until I'm convinced that this job can be done in a way that doesn't place me and those around me in mortal peril."

With 20-20 hindsight, clearly Baldwin should have reached that point before this tragedy happened. But film sets are weird pressure cooker environments and lots of people stay in dangerous situations far too long because all the little warning signs never quite add up to "this is an extraordinary situation that requires drastic action" until it's too late.

It seems clear that the reason that Baldwin is being charged with a serious crime while David Halls, who actively worked to create this situation, gets off with a slap on the wrist is because the prosecutor likes the idea of going after the big time Hollywood lefty asshole that nobody likes, rather than nailing some AD who nobody's ever heard of.
posted by firechicago at 5:58 AM on January 20, 2023 [32 favorites]

I'm not an attorney, but here's a HYPOTHETICAL for the MeFi legal eagles:

The marque actor in an indie film, let's call him Bob, has a history of not being able to be told "no" in his professional and personal life. To the point where he has had to take a court ordered anger management class.

Bob has invested a lot of his own money in this film and is therefore producing as well as staring in it. Being an indie production, money is very tight, and there isn't enough time to get all the shots properly so a bunch of corners are cut. E.g., time consuming safety protocols are skipped, the crew hotel is 60 minutes away from set, everyone is forced to do more than just their own job, etc.

As might be expected, things devolve as shooting progresses and everyone is tired and pushed to their limits. There are a couple of accidents with firearms on set that scare the hell out of some people and the department heads repeatedly complain to Bob about safety. Unfortunately their complaints fall on deaf ears. A few folks are so freaked out that they eventually quit rather than continue working in such an unsafe environment, which Bob is directly responsible for creating.

The union crew members are replaced with less experienced, nonunion staff and at a rehearsal the next day a very, very dangerous scene is set up with out the most basic safety precautions. Bob tells everyone to shut th fuck up and get on with the work. During rehearsal he takes a gun, points it directly at the camera -- without checking the chamber or having a plexiglass safety shield in place -- fires and kills the director of photography.

In this hypothetical situation, does Bob have legal responsiblity for the DP's death?
posted by Dean358 at 6:14 AM on January 20, 2023 [8 favorites]

Remember he is only being charged not convicted.

I have zero problem with charging every single person who kills someone with a gun. Let a trial determine if they are guilty of a crime.

Politicians should not be deciding if people are innocent when a life has been taken. I also dislike plea deals in potential murder cases.
posted by srboisvert at 6:24 AM on January 20, 2023 [3 favorites]

I feel like it should be possible to invent a safety prop gun. Make sure it can’t take actual rounds by modifying the chamber, and create a special round designed to mimic a shot fired but without nearly as much force as a blank,

There are guns designed to only shoot special blank cartridges. I don't know if they sell versions in "oldey timey" gun styles though.
posted by BungaDunga at 6:27 AM on January 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

I agree that the prosecutors here are going to have a very difficult case ahead of them to show the necessary degree of negligence, and that they're likely going after Baldwin for publicity or malice. But.

If he was told to drive a "real car" and was assured that it was not a brake-cables-have-been-cut car, and then ran over someone, would you find that as straightforward?

Analogies often make for terrible reasoning.

But if he was told to get into a car and charge at a living human, stomping the brakes to avoid hitting and killing them, then yeah it's straightforward. You should absolutely do a couple of panic stops to ensure the brakes are working. Yourself, because it's going to be you mushing up the victim if the brakes don't work, and even if you aren't charged with a crime or escape conviction because of other people's errors you still have to live with having killed someone because you didn't bother to check the brakes before you charged at them with a car.

I agree that abiding by the decisions made by other notionally-more-expert people should usually be enough to avoid criminal conviction, but... lordy. Someone tells you the gun is cold, someone tells you there's nobody doing maintenance in the furnace, someone tells you the stamp press is safed... the last line of defense is always that person actually tasked with doing the dangerous thing. It's your ass or someone else's ass and I assure you whatever large corporate endeavor you're part of does not care one whit about your interests.

Yes, I get this is easy for me to say because the most dangerous thing I might be asked to do in my line of work is show up in a crowded room while contagious with something.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:54 AM on January 20, 2023 [3 favorites]

In this hypothetical situation, does Bob have legal responsiblity for the DP's death?

I mean, part of the issue here is what kind of "legal responsibility" we are talking about. The walls around criminal responsibility are, with good reason, higher and steeper than the walls around civil responsibility. It's not just the "reasonable doubt" vs. "more likely than not" thing, but also the higher mens rea requirements for involuntary manslaughter compared to wrongful death, plus various procedural and evidentiary safeguards. I don't think there's much question that Bob is at significant risk of civil liability.

As to a criminal charge, though, what the comments in this thread have helped me understand is that this isn't just a random accidental discharge situation -- by pointing a gun directly at another human and pulling the trigger, Bob is engaging in an extremely dangerous activity even by waving-guns-around-on-a-film-set standards. So this may be a situation in which you could reasonably say that it's reckless/criminally negligent not to do something (manually checking the gun and ammunition) that would not ordinarily be expected even on a film set with safety issues.

FWIW, my not-terribly-informed opinion is that it would make a significant difference if it can be proven to be the case that Bob knew there were live rounds on set. Combining that with the known safety issues could potentially make for a plausible argument that Bob was criminally negligent in pointing and shooting the gun without checking it Bobself.

Anyway, while all of the doubts about "Bob" getting a fair trial here are fair enough, it's mildly comforting to note that this is a rare situation in which the defendant isn't going to be massively outgunned, uh, overmatched by the prosecution. So a fair trial is at least possible in a way it isn't for the vast majority of Bobs who get chewed up by the US justice system.
posted by Not A Thing at 7:22 AM on January 20, 2023 [4 favorites]

I may be misremembering, but I don't think the gun was supposed to be clear. It was supposed to have blanks.

Blanks can still cause injury - or even death - if mis-handled. Just ask Brandon Lee.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:23 AM on January 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

My point about the blanks is that people were saying he should've checked to see if the gun was loaded. The gun was supposed to be loaded, but with dummy cartridges, not blanks. If I'm understanding guns and dummy cartridges correctly, he would've had to unload the gun and individually inspect each bullet. That, to me, is a quite different level of expertise than "why didn't this idiot check if the gun was loaded," especially in the context of a job where you are expected to rely on experts and a detailed protocol.
posted by Mavri at 8:55 AM on January 20, 2023 [10 favorites]

I guess, purely as a question of social incentives, I’m totally fine with a world where anyone who ever kills anyone else with a gun is near-automatically prosecuted for manslaughter. If that means that using guns in movies becomes near-impossible… that seems fine?
posted by rishabguha at 9:18 AM on January 20, 2023 [3 favorites]

Baldwin, at least till recently, kept insisting that he did not pull the trigger and the gun 'went-off' accidentally, when HD video evidence shows otherwise. He did pull the trigger. That may be the reason why he is being charged. Plus, didn't Baldwin also blow off the gun safety briefing for this production?
posted by indianbadger1 at 9:22 AM on January 20, 2023 [4 favorites]

Great! Let's make this the rule from now on. And by "from now on" I mean, as with all new rules, following a reasonable grace period where the people affected can at least be told about "Halyna's Law".

I'm not kidding, I'd be totally on board with this.
posted by tigrrrlily at 9:23 AM on January 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

I've wondered if Halls and Baldwin were maybe enjoying some desert gun play with the set guns and the armorer either knew and didn't have the clout or guts to do anything about it (a young woman on a set would never get bullied by leadership, oh my heavens), or didn't know and in that case, it's a setup to a fuck up.

I was in a situation where the leader of a crew (the professor) where we were doing hands-on construction with students (little to no experience) was mocking me (a student with a close working relationship with the professor, one in which I felt almost equal as I was a full adult at the time, over 30) for being concerned over safety. Moments after telling me that my insistence on hardhats (which we had brought to the site...where are they?) was unfounded a student very nearly had a massive steel chain dumped on his unprotected head. Professor looked at me, chagrined and said, "maybe I better listen to you...let's find those hardhats." I was so disappointed in him and mad at myself for not being more forceful in the face of a little pushback from my mentor in front of other students. Sorry, this is bog standard toxic leadership behavior that can and does lead to small and large consequences every single day. And I will never understand WTF with men who cannot handle a little pushback on their overwhelming excitement to play with their boomsticks. They act like if you tell them to display a little caution and decorum that you've just pushed their faces in the dirt. And I have no trouble imagining Baldwin being just like that on a set.

Anyway, he's being called to answer questions. It's insane that Halls has a plea. I don't think this is the end of that and someone knows why there were live rounds in that gun. Maybe it's Alec who knows.
posted by amanda at 9:37 AM on January 20, 2023 [5 favorites]

Baldwin, at least till recently, kept insisting that he did not pull the trigger and the gun 'went-off' accidentally, when HD video evidence shows otherwise. He did pull the trigger.

That right there would seem to be the crux of it. If that is indeed what actually happened, Baldwin shares some of the responsibility and should be held legally accountable, regardless of who did or didn't check the chamber beforehand.

On a film set, there's simply no justification for pulling the trigger on an operable firearm—whether loaded or not—that's pointed at a person standing off-camera.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:46 AM on January 20, 2023 [3 favorites]

I would doubt that only because Alec is know as anti-NRA and outspoken (previously) about gun reform. Maybe he likes shooting, maybe not, but it's not a data point in favor of him messing around for fun on a set. Also, I've never heard any rumors that he was misbehaving on set, only that the armorer was lax in that way.
posted by tiny frying pan at 9:48 AM on January 20, 2023

My point about the blanks is that people were saying he should've checked to see if the gun was loaded. The gun was supposed to be loaded, but with dummy cartridges, not blanks. If I'm understanding guns and dummy cartridges correctly, he would've had to unload the gun and individually inspect each bullet. That, to me, is a quite different level of expertise than "why didn't this idiot check if the gun was loaded," especially in the context of a job where you are expected to rely on experts and a detailed protocol.

Yes indeed Mavri. But this was apparently a rehearsal take where they were blocking the shot, i.e., finding the relationship between the camera, the actors and the barrel of the gun. This required Baldwin to point the gun directly at the camera and the crew behind the camera.

There is no reason to do this with a loaded gun. The shot could have been composed with a fake gun that can't fire anything. If for some reason they wanted to do it with the real gun (?!) then at a minimum the chamber should have been confirmed empty right there on set and there should have been a protective shield between the camera / crew and the barrel of the gun.

Of course, all that would have taken more time and therefore money........
posted by Dean358 at 10:13 AM on January 20, 2023 [5 favorites]

As I recall, the armorer was the person taking people target shooting during down time. There hasn't been a single assertion that Baldwin had anything to do with the guns except being handed it by the AD, unless something has come out very recently.
posted by tavella at 10:16 AM on January 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

SAG is not Equity, but it might behoove people to reread the Equity guidance posted above.
posted by hoyland at 10:19 AM on January 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

And I seem to remember Gutierrez-Reed being implicated in the beer can shooting, too.

e: dueling edits to fix errors, heh
posted by ryanrs at 10:19 AM on January 20, 2023

Whoops, fixed!
posted by tavella at 10:20 AM on January 20, 2023

Halyna Hutchins was the cinematographer who was killed. The armorer was Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who is the other person being charged with involuntary manslaughter.
posted by firechicago at 10:20 AM on January 20, 2023

But this was apparently a rehearsal take where they were blocking the shot, i.e., finding the relationship between the camera, the actors and the barrel of the gun. This required Baldwin to point the gun directly at the camera and the crew behind the camera.

There is no reason to do this with a loaded gun. The shot could have been composed with a fake gun that can't fire anything.

Exactly. They could have rehearsed with a stick or a piece of wood or something, even.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:26 AM on January 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

Rubber guns are the usual go-to, I believe. They can be made heavy, like a real gun, which is important for realistic handling.
posted by ryanrs at 10:29 AM on January 20, 2023

As I recall, the armorer was the person taking people target shooting during down time.

Then that's serious BS. And if Alec was aware of this, especially considering the other safety concerns, I do think that he needed to assert his star power and producer role and make the set safer. I'm sure he regrets not doing that now but all these actions including if he was knowledgeable and did not shut it down resulted in an employee losing their life. I have no problem with him going to court over this. I think it remains to be seen what the results of that will be and whether the armorer and Halls face further punitive action. Also, her position there just sucks and I admit to being kneejerk about women being hung out to dry. She admitted she was too inexperienced for this role. The crew was dissatisfied with the overall safety of the set. Who had the power to fix this? Was it her? Shooting at cans with the set props? Unconscionable, reckless hubris.
posted by amanda at 10:34 AM on January 20, 2023

a student very nearly had a massive steel chain dumped on his unprotected head. Professor looked at me, chagrined and said, "maybe I better listen to you...let's find those hardhats." I was so disappointed in him and mad at myself for not being more forceful in the face of a little pushback from my mentor in front of other students.

Don't be so hard on yourself on that one. You got lucky in that something happened to make your point AND that the professor realized after that that you were right. In my experience, if management/the people in charge do not want to listen to you, sometimes even after the bad thing you were warning about happens, well, you tried. It's on them and it's their prerogative and power to not listen to you if they don't wanna listen. What are you supposed to do, scream NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and set off nukes and call police to get them to? Especially if escalating your complaint only makes it worse on you and they still aren't going to listen? People have given me so much shit for standing up and speaking up on the rare times I've absolutely been forced to do it, and then people still don't listen to me because (a) I come in the wrong packaging to be listened to, and (b) THEY DON'T WANNA ANYWAY.

I note in this case, people walked off set when they weren't being listened to. But I don't think the powers that be in this case wanted to listen and were not going to under any circumstances, at least not until the worst happened. They had more incentive to just try to keep things working on a small Hollywood budget and just hope the worst didn't happen and play the odds that it would not. Actually doing something about safety would have cost more money, after all. If nobody has incentive to listen to you, if they don't want to hear what Cassandra thinks, if the incentive is to ignore and hope for the best vs. "I'm going to have to spend a lot more money to make sure people don't die," then they ignore and hope. And now they have a movie that I hope to god they never finish because I sure as fuck don't want to see it and I can't imagine who'd want to see this murder movie now, and a dead woman whose kid will never have a mom again, and 1-2(?) other injuries from this.

I have no idea if Gutierrez-Reed tried to raise any concerns and was blown off for being a young woman and who cares about their opinion, or if she was too dumb to figure out there were concerns, or if she was really dumb enough to take people shooting with real bullets and then wonder, gee, why were there real bullets in there, though. I look forward to seeing more evidence on that particular topic.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:41 AM on January 20, 2023 [3 favorites]

SAG is not Equity, but it might behoove people to reread the Equity guidance posted above.

Actor's Equity is for *stage* productions. The requirements of a film set are different. For example, a classic action film shot has the camera looking down the barrel of the gun, not something that a stage productions ever has to be concerned with. Similarly, details like seeing the tips of the bullets in a revolver are not relevant on stage.

As others have said, it may well be that the the film rules for what you can do with a gun need to change, but under the accepted film set rules of the time, Baldwin did nothing unusual, and in fact things people have suggested, like Baldwin should have unloaded the gun and checked to make sure each bullet was a dummy, would be actively counter-indicated, as the set expert, the armorer, is the only one who should be loading and unloading the gun.

Stage rules are not relevant. Gun range rules are not relevant. Maybe they should be going forward! But you can't retroactively apply them.
posted by tavella at 10:42 AM on January 20, 2023 [5 favorites]

Actor's Equity is for *stage* productions. The requirements of a film set are different. For example, a classic action film shot has the camera looking down the barrel of the gun, not something that a stage productions ever has to be concerned with..

Certainly correct. But the Actors Equity list is much more concise and very similar to the SAG rules which made for a better post.

For those who want to read the film set rules in depth, they're posted a few entires down, repeated here:

IATSE Safety bulletin #1

IATSE Saftey Bulletin #2

IATSE Saftey Bulletin #5.
posted by Dean358 at 10:49 AM on January 20, 2023

I was curious about Halls' charge, "negligent use of a deadly weapon".

NM Code 30-7-4 reads, in part:

[definition of negligent use of a deadly weapon]
...
Whoever commits negligent use of a deadly weapon is guilty of a petty misdemeanor.

NM Code 31-19-1 (B)

Where the defendant has been convicted of a crime constituting a petty misdemeanor, the judge shall sentence the person to be imprisoned in the county jail for a definite term not to exceed six months or to the payment of a fine of not more than five hundred dollars ($500) or to both such imprisonment and fine in the discretion of the judge.

So that's the maximum sentence for that one charge. It is classified as a non-violent misdemeanor.

I'm also curious why Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed each got two counts of involuntary manslaughter. Why two counts?
posted by ryanrs at 11:09 AM on January 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

#5 is stuff that is the responsibility of the AD/director and department heads, not the actors. #2 is relevant to live ammunition on set, which is not what was supposed to be true here, again not the responsibility of the actors. #1 is the only relevant one, and notice how it says in bold, that if something is going to be done that violates these guidelines trust your property master/armorer and the AD.

If Baldwin did touch the trigger without being supposed to for the scene, then I suppose that's the thread they are hanging a manslaughter charge on, but that's a fairly thin thread to claim criminal recklessness when the two experts who were responsible for the gun on set were telling him it was cold/safe. Especially when you are letting one of those two walk with a misdemeanor.
posted by tavella at 11:21 AM on January 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

→ They can be made heavy, like a real gun, which is important for realistic handling.

I got a tour of a high-end 3d printing place that mostly made prop guns for Toronto's many sound stages. The props they made were mostly for sci-fi productions, but the core of each one was a Glock pistol that had a hardened steel screw driven down the barrel to put it irreparably beyond use. There were two reasons for using a Glock: firstly, it gave the prop heft so the actors would handle it correctly. The second reason was surprising: it was far cheaper to source a real, deactivated gun than make a believable armature out of steel or lead. Using 3d printing resin as filler was out of the question, as production costs were tens of dollars a gram.

It doesn't sound like anyone's idea of justice will be served in this case, no matter the outcome.
posted by scruss at 11:34 AM on January 20, 2023

BungaDunga, I handled a single-action replica of a US Army Colt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colt_Single_Action_Army) in... 1988.. during a stage combat class. The revolver had what was called a "neck-down" in the chambers of the revolver that would only accept the firing blanks, and a SMALLER neck-down in the barrel in case some idiot managed to bypass that. This was metal bonded with the chambers. This kind of gun was used for rodeos and events like that, not stage productions.

What I don't understand is: why did they have to film straight down the barrel of the gun? All they had to do was to interpose a mirror at a 45 degree angle and the safety factor would have increased by a factor of a million! This is NOT an attempt to shift blame - it just seems amazing that it's not 100% standard practice for that kind of shot!
posted by scolbath at 11:40 AM on January 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

tabella, with all due respect I believe #5 is extremely relevant. If the reports are correct there were multiple, on-going serious safety violations during principle photography of this film. While it is the responsibility of the first AD to address this he/she works for the producer. If the producer is not willing to establish a culture of safety and insists on cutting corners to save time/money it puts the AD in a tough spot. This is compounded when the producer also happens to be the star, making it more difficult to disagree with them about following the rules.

FWIW, I've had safety meetings where the AD was like a fanatical drill sergeant. Everyone very much apprenticed her detailed attention to safety protocols, we got our shots and no one so much as broke a hang nail. This sadly was not the case here.
posted by Dean358 at 11:46 AM on January 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

If you are going to be working with a real firearm under any circumstances (work, acting gig, going hunting) it is on you as an adult to make sure you know how to handle it safely. This also applies to vehicles and heavy equipment.

FYI people are prosecuted and convicted for involuntary manslaughter all the time when car or truck has a mechanical failure that results in a fatal accident. As the operator you are expected to know how to operate the vehicle safely and that includes ensuring that there isn’t damage or wear on the vehicle that would cause some critical safety failure. Walk around the car and check for obvious signs like fluid leaks and visible damage. Ensure your vehicle up to date on maintenance. When you drive the car check the breaks and steering before you start speeding off. Don’t shake hands with danger.
posted by interogative mood at 11:55 AM on January 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

Baldwin wasn't "the producer" here; he had an executive producer credit, he wasn't running the production, hiring crew, or managing the set (at least from anything that's come out.)
posted by tavella at 11:58 AM on January 20, 2023 [5 favorites]

That there had been multiple misfires of the prop gun in the two weeks before Hutchins was killed will probably come up in court. Six months after her death, New Mexico’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau fined Rust Movie Productions $136,793 (the maximum permissible) for firearms safety failures on set.
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:18 PM on January 20, 2023

Why do movies need to have guns in them? What's so great about guns? Guns don't buy movie tickets.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:08 PM on January 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

It is paid product placement, just like the cars in films. (not joking)
posted by ryanrs at 1:23 PM on January 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

I don’t think his role as a producer will be as significant a factor in the case. The key facts are going to be that he shot the gun and afterwards it appears he lied to police about the details and placed the blame on others. The video of him pulling the trigger vs the video of his own statement saying he didn’t pull the trigger. There is no evidence other than Baldwin’s statement that he was told it was a cold gun. Prosecutors will be able to paint that as another lie to try to escape responsibility. We have involuntary manslaughter as a crime because we recognize an obligation to take reasonable care when doing something that might harm others.

His defenses would be that the gun was somehow defective in a way that he couldn’t have known. That he didn’t know that guns are dangerous. That he took reasonable steps to avoid the very accident that occurred. We know that the gun was not broken. We know that Baldwin knows that the activity was potentially dangerous. We know he didn’t take adequate care to avoid the accident.

Prosecutors appear to have strong evidence to prove the case and they requested an extra $650,000 to prosecute it. Given the expense of the trial, Baldwin seems to be in a good position to get a plea bargain.
posted by interogative mood at 1:30 PM on January 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

Well, I should amend that by saying I don't think the Colt SAA in Rust was product placement. But a LOT of the cool, modern guns in movies are straight product placement. The advertising is not just aimed at the general public, but also cops and other gun-having professionals.
posted by ryanrs at 1:31 PM on January 20, 2023

Prop guns are sort of an edge-case of responsibility. The armorer is supposed to control and supervise all the use of guns to make sure the scene is shot safely. The actors are supposed to not do obviously unsafe things, and handle the guns exactly as the armorer instructs. The AD is supposed to supervise them.

Revolvers in particular are often unmodified real guns in close-up shots and firing scenes. They need very realistic cartridges in close-ups of loading, ones where the only way to tell that they're faked is that they have some bb's that rattle if you shake them. They also need to be loaded for front views, but those can be missing primers to check without unloading.

So on one hand Baldwin should have known it was a real gun and should have known pointing it at someone while cocking the hammer could be dangerous. He should also be familiar with standard procedures (e.g. blocking the scene with rubber guns, the armorer personally verifying the gun before every take, etc) and known not following them would be unsafe. On the other hand there's no reason for him to know dummy cartridges from real ones, and it would be out of line to check without the armorer directly supervising. So it all comes down to him being reasonably cautious given his roles and responsibilities.

I think it's a bit silly to say that some universal rules of gun handling applies to every use of a gun no matter what. Basic rules of hoisting include never standing under the load and inspecting your equipment. You don't even need to know those rules to operate an elevator. It's not unusual at all to have different rules as an operator even when the equipment is identical.

There are some productions that use only fake guns intrinsically incapable of firing a projectile. One cited is The Walking Dead, so even gun-heavy productions can do that. But for the most part they rely on real guns. They might be modified for look or function or safety, but everything including futuristic laser guns are built around a real gun. Real guns are cheaper than realistic fake guns, and they don't need post production work to seem real. Even with the hassle of having an armorer on set, it's cheaper and easier. Hopefully more productions step up and forbid real guns as time goes on.
posted by netowl at 1:46 PM on January 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

One of the things I've read about this case that made sense to me was that if actors are going to be culpable in the case of gun accidents (especially given all the other points about the role of the AD and Armorer in set safety with guns), contracts for actors are going to need to deal with that risk. E.g., actors are going to want contract options where they can refuse to use an actual gun vs an inert prop gun to reduce risks.

Along those lines, it also occurs to me that there are significant insurance/financial issues to be considered, both for the individual actors and for the film set/production as a whole. To be horrible and inhuman and money-oriented, Rust is pretty clearly going to have problems if they don't have to pull the plug on it completely because of the death on set. Someone has to eat that cost.

One of the things I keep hearing about with qualified immunity for cops in the US is that if it goes away, insurance costs will drive bad cops out of the policing business because they'll be uninsurable (and insurance companies will track asshole cops in ways that the current system simply does not). Similarly, I would expect the brutal financial incentives of film insurance with guns to improve some aspects of safety, at least temporarily, and I hope insurance companies make the responsible parties here, including anyone who pleads out, less employable in the film industry in the future.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 2:04 PM on January 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

While my ten-minute gun-clearing class might not cover every conceivable firearm, it would cover 99% of them, and at least leave you knowing that you don't know how to do the other 1%.

and

I think it's a bit silly to say that some universal rules of gun handling applies to every use of a gun no matter what.

There are some people in this thread are using a lot of words to deliberately and verbosely refuse to understand why standard safety protocols are called "standard" and "protocols" and why you follow them even when they might not specifically apply to specifically you 100%.

Even assuming this 99% number wasn't made up, which it is, just run the math. Do something 99% safe and 1% fatal ten times, your odds are now one in ten somebody's going to die. Do it thirty times, it's one in four. Forty times, one in three. Do it sixty times, and you're tossing a coin with somebody's life.
posted by mhoye at 2:21 PM on January 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

It is paid product placement, just like the cars in films

Business is business. Guns don't sell themselves.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:11 PM on January 20, 2023

His defenses would be that the gun was somehow defective in a way that he couldn’t have known. That he didn’t know that guns are dangerous.

Baldwin doesn't need to make this argument when he has a much simpler one: He was handed a gun that he was told was cold. Everything he did afterwards was done with the absolute certainty that a professional who was responsible to tracking every weapon and round on set at all times had assured him that this prop was completely safe. And if he still wasn't following proper safety protocols, that's the fault of the people like Halls and Gutierrez-Reed, who had responsibility for establishing and enforcing those protocols and were apparently standing right there not objecting to anything he was doing. And Gutierrez-Reed is going to back up that testimony, because the alternative to testifying that she pronounced the gun cold is testifying that she didn't even think she had checked the rounds, she just handed a gun to an actor loaded with god-knows-what, and at that point she may as well just ask them to cuff her there.

Now, you can agree or disagree with this argument. I don't think you'll find anyone in this thread who believes that Baldwin's handling of the gun was totally hunky dory or that he shouldn't have known better than to be waving even a cold gun around within a few feet of crew members' faces. But there's a lot of territory between "should have known better" and "was provably guilty of criminal negligence."
posted by firechicago at 3:29 PM on January 20, 2023 [6 favorites]

Baldwin can testify that he was told it was a cold gun and then prosecutors will show him telling police that he didn’t pull the trigger and the gun just went off and then they’ll show the video of him pulling the trigger. Then the jury will have to decide if they think this was just another lie to escape responsibility. The guy who handed Baldwin the gun has already made a plea bargain with prosecutors, he’ll probably testify that safety conditions were lax on set and that he never said cold gun. They’ll be able to bring out other witnesses to talk about safety issues on set and other incidents.
It looks like the prosecutors are at least willing to drop the firearms enhancement from the manslaughter charges as part of a plea. If he takes that then he’s only looking at an 18 month sentence and a fine. At trial it will be up to the jury and if they put the firearms enhancement on the charges it’s a 5 year mandatory minimum sentence. His lawyers might be able to negotiate it down to unsafe handling as David Halls got which is a misdemeanor; but I doubt it.
posted by interogative mood at 3:55 PM on January 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think the safety standards as expressed above - don't point your gun at a person, even when you're supposed to, "cheat' the shot - show that Baldwin was not following the expressed safety protocols he was supposed to be following.

He committed the act of pulling the trigger, and he did so with the criminally reckless mind of failing to take the appropriate care that he was required to do regardless of whether the gun was cold or not and a woman died as the result. Those safety standards as listed above don't say "unless the gun is cold, then just kidding, do whatever the fuck you want." Seems like they've definitely got enough to charge him for involuntary manslaughter. Now it's just to see who's going to win.

But I do think the defense has an uphill battle in a town full of gun owners, who all are trained on never trust anybody who tells you a gun isn't loaded.
posted by corb at 3:58 PM on January 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

Baldwin believed, based on prior gun safety training he received on movie sets, that actors should not unilaterally check guns for live ammunition,” Mr. Nikas wrote in the lawsuit. “If actors want to check a gun for their own peace of mind, they should check the gun only with the armorer closely supervising the process

This. If I am an armorer, the last thing I want is some untrained goofy-assed actor opening up a gun that I have gone over and declared "cold" and doing god-knows-what to it. If I was really doing my job, I would demand to reinspect the gun once they were done, which I suppose just starts the cycle over again.
posted by rtimmel at 4:07 PM on January 20, 2023 [13 favorites]

One could, however, insist the armorer show you the gun is unloaded, that the barrel is clear, that if there are blanks or dummy ammunition that that's what in there, etc. No, it's not "treat every gun as if it were loaded" margins of safety, but it's not bad given that you're willing to point a gun in the general direction of a person and pull the trigger.
posted by hoyland at 5:39 PM on January 20, 2023

The state of New Mexico is going to learn the meaning of "chilling effect" when productions leave the state. Imagine what happens to the production when the state suddenly communicates to actors that they, not the armorer or the props department or the 1st AD or the director, but they personally, are responsible for what happens with the gun they were directed to use in their scene. They'll never pick it up again.

And for those of you saying "Good, less gun scenes in my movies/TV", explain what's stopping the logic that allows NM to indict Baldwin from being extended to prop knives, prop swords, prop beer bottles (can you tell the difference between real glass and breakaway glass without, y'know, breaking it?), not to mention every on-camera car.

To repeat my stance: A professional actor is required to rely on the professionalism of everyone who sets the scene before they show up. They're the last person to arrive on set! Everything is already laid out, say the line, make a face, pull the trigger, cut. You want to make set safety the actor's responsibility?
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 5:47 PM on January 20, 2023 [5 favorites]

You want to make set safety the actor's responsibility?

No, I want to make it everyone's responsibility. I want people to be properly the fuck afraid of firearms. I want them to treat guns like I treated guns when I wore one every fucking waking hour of the day because I lived in fucking Baghdad, and I still checked to make sure it wasn't loaded every morning when I took it out of the locker in my locked room that I had locked it in the previous evening and slept next to for the following six hours.

And why do I want everyone to be absolutely goddamn paranoid about safety? Because someone just died because -- from all reports -- people were all la-di-dah-fuck-it about safety.
posted by Etrigan at 6:39 PM on January 20, 2023 [9 favorites]

If I am an armorer, the last thing I want is some untrained goofy-assed actor opening up a gun that I have gone over and declared "cold" and doing god-knows-what to it. If I was really doing my job

...then there'd be one more living member of the International Cinematographers Guild. You don't want some untrained goofy-assed actor opening up a gun that you've gone over and declared cold, then train the actor in what they are supposed to do to ensure that you have done your job correctly and safely. I have commanded some of the absolute fucking thickest, sloppiest, unthinkingest human beings you have ever met, and they at least were able to learn how to handle weapons didn't kill anyone accidentally. It can be done.
posted by Etrigan at 6:45 PM on January 20, 2023 [4 favorites]

Respectfully, soldiers in a combat situation is an apples-and-oranges comparison to a union movie set. Or even a non-union movie set if it were staffed with competent people. (Which this set definitely wasn't.) The responsibility for the failure of safety should fall on the people who were entrusted with safety. To use your frame of reference, what you're suggesting is akin to a soldier being held responsible for not double-checking a higher-ranking officer's responsibilities (ie they don't know what "doing it right" looks like).

And if you're saying "But you could teach them!" then I'd say Well, you can try, but unlike soldiers you have no enforcement mechanism for when they get it wrong. You can't bench your lead actors. You can't make them do safety drills until they know it cold, ignoring anything else they need to do. All anyone can do -- all anyone below-the-line on a production ever does -- is work around the capabilities (and deficiencies) of the above-the-line talent.

Now I'll grant you that Baldwin muddies the responsibility by being both an actor and a producer. But his role as producer, and his culpability, should have been left for the civil suit. The DA passed on the actually responsible people in order to hunt a big name. And it will blow up in their face because the various unions absolutely cannot let this kind of precedent go to a conviction. It endangers the entire web of trust that is the basis for a functioning movie set.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:22 PM on January 20, 2023 [4 favorites]

There is no special exemption for actors form the consequences of their own actions when using some piece of intrinsically dangerous equipment. If they ignore the safety briefing and refuse to follow the rules then they are criminally responsible any consequences.

I think it is important to realize that there appears to be lots of evidence that the set of Rust was not following normal movie safety practices and that there multiple near accidents before this one. The web of trust had broken down to the point that many people had left the production.

Moving your production out of New Mexico isn’t going to protect the actor/producer and others in the crew from potential criminal prosecution if firearms are going to be handled in a criminally negligent way.
posted by interogative mood at 9:15 PM on January 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

the lengths that you and other people are going to for the apparent goal of letting people be shot to death.

I recognize that you served in combat, so gun usage has a higher emotional register for you than it might for other people, but that’s a really shitty way to characterize what I’ve been saying. I’m not trying to personalize this, but since you’ve already brought up your experience as a soldier, I’ll ask: do you have any experience on a professional movie set? Because I do.

There is a difference between what responsible gun ownership looks like, versus how responsible gun handling is supposed to work like on a movie set.
There is a tradition of separate responsibilities and supervision amongst the various trade unions that has over a century of respect in the movie business.
OBVIOUSLY THIS SET’S WEAPON HANDLING AND SAFETY PRACTICE WAS DEFICIENT. But there is a difference between civil and criminal responsibility. Charging Baldwin with manslaughter — and skipping over the crew members who were actually responsible for the care of the weapons — is bad law, bad precedent.

How can I prove this is bad precedent? Because if this case goes through and gets a conviction, what’s to stop another DA from charging Michael Masse for shooting Brandon Lee on the set of the Crow back in 1994? There’s no statute of limitations on murder, right? The actor should’ve inspected the gun himself, right? The actor is as responsible for gun safety as the armorer on set, right? Ridiculous.

If they ignore the safety briefing and refuse to follow the rules

I cannot stress this enough: A professional in their working environment should have the right to expect professional behavior from everyone around them. Baldwin the actor was handed a prop by the 1stAD and was told that it was a “cold gun.” He then did what he was instructed to do, point at the camera and pull the trigger.

To what extent Baldwin as executive producer should be held responsible for the poor safety protocols on set is a matter for civil court, not criminal. The DA had an opportunity with this case to strengthen protection for all crew on sets, but chose to go showboat instead.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 9:48 PM on January 20, 2023 [11 favorites]

Masse’s accidental shooting of Brandon Lee was very different than the situation that occurred on the set of Rust. Masse was working with a hot gun loaded with blanks. He knew it was a hit gun, he expected to fire it and he could see when it was loaded that the rounds that were blanks. No one checked the gun barrel and that was not a standard procedure at the time. As a result of the accident the barrel is checked when blanks are being used.

On the set of Rust, Baldwin got a gun without the armorer present. He didn’t know how to check the gun and he should have known the prop master isn’t supposed to be handing out guns and the armorer is supposed to check stuff and be on set for safety. He decided to go ahead anyway and shot and killed someone.
posted by interogative mood at 12:12 AM on January 21, 2023

Uh? interogative mood, you appear to be posting from a parallel dimension. The person who handed him the gun was the AD, who is in fact the person in charge of safety for the whole production, and the person that is specifically, along with the armorer or prop master (if there is no armorer), responsible for weapons safety, as noted in the SAG Safety Bulletin #1 that has been linked a couple of times. Similarly, you stated that it was only Baldwin's word that Dave Halls had said "cold gun", and a) I find no reporting that suggests that is even in dispute and b) if Halls walked up and whispered "hot gun" in Baldwin's ear, as you appear to imagine, he would be still responsible for the safety failure because when there is a hot gun, EVERY FUCKING PERSON ON THE SET is supposed to know it; you announce hot gun or cold gun very clearly.
posted by tavella at 12:49 AM on January 21, 2023 [8 favorites]

Charging Baldwin with manslaughter — and skipping over the crew members who were actually responsible for the care of the weapons — is bad law, bad precedent.

I have not said one single word about whether Alexander Rae Baldwin III should be charged, convicted, accused, whispered about, pilloried, or sanctioned criminally, civilly, or in any way whatsoever in his capacity as actor, producer, activist, or human being. What I have been pushing back against is various people’s continued insistence that actors cannot be trusted to be part of the safety process. Everyone should be trusted to be part of the safety process. Everyone must be trusted and trained and educated and empowered to be part of the safety process.

Relying on other people’s professionalism is a great way to get people killed when you’re dealing with things that were designed by other professional people to kill.
posted by Etrigan at 7:27 AM on January 21, 2023 [3 favorites]

Slate: The Manslaughter Charges Against Alec Baldwin Truly Make No Sense

As for the actor part, how is it possible for him to be charged if he was told that the gun was a cold gun and wasn’t loaded with live ammo? How much is that his responsibility as an actor? 

First of all, it’s not his responsibility as an actor to ensure prop safety. There’s somebody on set specifically to do that, who’s an expert. Actors, they’re not even allowed to do that. What people don’t understand is, the Screen Actors Guild, the union, does not allow any producer, anybody, to use an actor for anything on set other than acting. You can’t use an actor to help decorate, to do lights, to do locations. He or she just can act, and that’s it. And there’s a reason for that, because there are other delegable duties that people have on set and that they’re supposed to do. An actor is required to rely upon an armorer, or any other person on set, who’s an expert, when it comes to whether or not a piece of equipment that they’re using is safe.

posted by BungaDunga at 11:17 AM on January 21, 2023 [5 favorites]

I get what they're saying, and it seems plausible that these charges are politically motivated BS, but I'd be inclined to wait and see exactly what comes out at trial before coming to any firm conclusions. Just because it is ordinarily sufficient for an actor to trust the designated expert on firearms safety doesn't mean that it was actually sufficient in this particular case. That's likely to depend on exactly what sort of nonsense was happening and how much the defendant knew about it.
posted by Not A Thing at 11:41 AM on January 21, 2023

> Slate: The Manslaughter Charges Against Alec Baldwin Truly Make No Sense

Bizarrely Tre Lovell echoes almost verbatim a number of the arguments found here in this thread. Tre, if you’re lurking here give us a wave.
posted by dis_integration at 11:50 AM on January 21, 2023 [1 favorite]

The Slate article also makes a point that "producer" is a vague title and sometimes just there for money:

So it is really presumptuous to just assume that because he’s a producer that he has any responsibility. Being a producer doesn’t mean you’re a partner, and it doesn’t mean you have the title, or level of responsibility, of production—that’s governed through the production agreements, through the operating agreement with the LLC that’s set up for the company, other things like that. I don’t know the details, but there is a strong chance that he’s credited as a producer because he’s an actor and that’s it. You know, sometimes his production company, even if they’re not doing anything, may even get him a banner credit. You just don’t know. But yeah, you really have to see what his role was as a producer to be able to pursue that theory under the prosecution.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:00 PM on January 21, 2023 [1 favorite]

I misread the cnn article and thought he was described as the prop master when it said Hall was an AD who took the gun from the prop master.

According to multiple sources cited in this article

five days before the shooting, Baldwin’s stunt double accidentally fired two live rounds after being told the gun didn’t have any ammunition.

There was at least one other incident prior to this on with Baldwins stunt double where a gun misfired. There was also an incident involving guns being left unattended and unsecured on set.

The LA Times has talked about other issues such as the fact that the armorer was pulling double duty and also working as an assistant prop master. This created problems that were documented in emails and text messages including those involving the producers and the armorer.
posted by interogative mood at 12:55 PM on January 21, 2023 [1 favorite]

Yes, and those issues are the responsibility of the AD, who is in charge of safety for the whole set. Which is the real sin here to me; while charging Baldwin seems dodgy to me, NM apparently has a very loose standard for reckless action and so I suppose it might be a makeable case. But if they think that manslaughter is a justifiable charge for the other two, it is absolutely obscene to let the person who is *most* responsible, the person who said that they only checked three of the bullets, who told the actor that it was a safe and cold gun, the person whose *job* it was to handle safety for the entire production and who let all those violations mentioned slide, walk away with a misdemeanor and zero jail time.

Which is why I think the charge for Baldwin is clearly about politics.
posted by tavella at 2:00 PM on January 21, 2023 [8 favorites]

New Mexico is a blue state with a strong film industry. This case is being run by the Santa Fe district attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies who is a Democrat. This isn’t about politics.
posted by interogative mood at 3:57 PM on January 21, 2023 [2 favorites]

It's political in the sense that we now know who Mary Carmack-Altwies is.
posted by mmmbacon at 4:04 PM on January 21, 2023 [3 favorites]

And maybe there's some egregious detail about Baldwin's conduct that will come out in trial but the onus of criminal responsibility was on the armorer and AD.

And to touch on The Pluto Gansta's point, I have now seen comments (not here, of course, on one of the social media circles of hell) calling for Michael Masse from The Crow to be charged now, so that's at least circulating in the minds of some.
posted by mmmbacon at 4:13 PM on January 21, 2023

Perhaps if there hadn’t been other safety issues involving the guns or even if Baldwin was just some random actor on the project and not actor/producer/huge star working on a personal passion project with the power to make changes. I expect at trial the prosecutors will have plenty of evidence from text messages, emails, accounts from witnesses from the crew that will show that Baldwin was aware of previous safety incidents, that he had the power to make changes and didn’t.
posted by interogative mood at 6:17 PM on January 21, 2023 [3 favorites]

New Mexico is a blue state with a strong film industry. This case is being run by the Santa Fe district attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies who is a Democrat. This isn’t about politics.

This. Plus the facts that Baldwin insisted he didn’t pull the trigger when stills show his finger on the trigger, and the sheriff’s testing showed the gun couldn’t have been discharged without someone pulling the trigger. And he wouldn’t turn over his cell phone which may have had photos from on the set when he was asked.

In general, the impression around here is that Alec Baldwin was not cooperative with law enforcement after the fact, and is seen as a dick who figured his name would keep him out of trouble. That’s the kind of behavior that almost guarantees a vigorous prosecution.

Santa Fe isn’t all earth ships and Birkenstocks like Taos (not that Taos really is, either), but it’s a lot closer to that than the rural areas of the state where people like Couy Griffin go on about how Donald Trump is president.
posted by DaveP at 6:35 PM on January 21, 2023 [10 favorites]

I mean clearly SOMEONE should be punished for this.. Alec Baldwin at least has a name I'll remember.
posted by some loser at 6:44 AM on January 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

the sheriff’s testing showed the gun couldn’t have been discharged without someone pulling the trigger.

"Accidental discharge testing determined that the firearm used in the shooting -- a .45 Colt (.45 Long Colt) caliber F.lli Pietta single-action revolver -- could not have fired without the trigger being pulled, the FBI report shows."

But:

"With the hammer de-cocked on a loaded chamber, the gun was able to detonate a primer "without a pull of the trigger when the hammer was struck directly," which is normal for this type of revolver, the report stated."

Because of tha, it used to be common practice to have the hammer rest on an empty chamber when using a single action revolver
--

One thing that I find odd is that it is a single action revolver.
For the gun to fire there are 2 steps involved
First the hammer must be cocked then second the trigger is pulled.


But once the hammer is cocked it does not require a lot of force to pull the trigger. It's a short pull.
Less than a double action
posted by yyz at 6:50 AM on January 22, 2023

Alec Baldwin Will Not Be Charged for Shooting 'Rust' Director
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:38 AM on January 22, 2023

I had a bit of trouble making sense of that TMZ article, but I guess the point is that Baldwin won't be charged for shooting the director, because the director didn't die, and while involuntary manslaughter is a thing, involuntary battery isn't.

He is still being charged for shooting Hutchins: "Baldwin is expected to be formally charged by month's end."
posted by Not A Thing at 9:01 AM on January 22, 2023 [2 favorites]

Yep, you made sense of it! That's all it is saying.
posted by tiny frying pan at 9:23 AM on January 22, 2023

I've been wondering about the "two manslaughter charges".

You'd think the DA would read the law before filing charges. Pretty sloppy.
posted by ryanrs at 2:31 PM on January 22, 2023

See this New Mexico law to understand the two manslaughter charges. If you are found guilty of a felony and you had a firearm then the prosecutor may ask the jury to also consider if the involvement of a gun should add a “firearms” enhancement to the verdict. The prosecutor announces if they are seeking this up front, hence the two manslaughter charges one with the firearms enhancement, one without. If the jury decides that this wasn’t really a gun crime, just manslaughter then he could get a very light sentence out of this that is mostly probation. If they go for the firearms enhancement then he’s looking at a mandatory minimum 5 year sentence.

This is all legal posturing at this point. Charges will have to be filed and his lawyers will try to get the judge to dismiss them before we even get close to a trial. I suspect there will be a plea bargain. Baldwin is going to have to accept some responsibility in court and probably drop some of his countersuits to escape his liability for this.
posted by interogative mood at 3:13 PM on January 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

Oh, my mistake. The with/without a gun choice of charges is less silly than what I was imagining.

(though charging this particular case as not-a-gun manslaughter also sounds pretty silly, tbh)
posted by ryanrs at 6:12 PM on January 22, 2023

You want to make set safety the actor's responsibility?

If the set safety rules aren't being followed there's not much to be responsible for anyway. At that point you're just a bunch of people passing guns around, and the only sane choice is to not take part in it.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:44 PM on January 22, 2023

NYT: Lights, Camera, Weapons Check? Actors Worry After Baldwin Charges. The manslaughter charges Alec Baldwin faces after a fatal on-set shooting revived questions about who’s responsible for gun safety on film productions. “We are not actual cowboys,” an actor noted.

The news that Alec Baldwin is facing manslaughter charges for killing a cinematographer with a gun he had been told was safe had the actor Steven Pasquale thinking back to the filming of “Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem” more than a decade ago, when he and other actors were handed military-style rifles and told to start shooting.
He felt safe, he said, because he relied on the professional props experts and the armorer who had checked and shown him the gun.
“We are artists — we are not actual cowboys, actual cops, actual superheroes,” Mr. Pasquale said. “We are not Jason Bourne. I can’t even begin to imagine an actor having the responsibility of now needing to be the safety person on the set regarding prop guns. That’s insane.”

Actors and armorers described varying experiences with guns on sets, with some actors exercising a higher level of caution than others.

Kirk Acevedo, an actor who has worked extensively with weapons on shows like “Band of Brothers” and in the film “The Thin Red Line,” said it was typical for a film’s armorer, who is responsible for guns and ammunition on set, to open a gun and demonstrate to the actor that it was empty. Mr. Acevedo said that while he owned guns and had experience with them, many actors lacked the expertise to check firearms on their own. In some cases, he noted, the actors are children.
“It’s not me,” he said, referring to who has the responsibility. “It can’t be me. If you have never fired a weapon before, how would you know how to do all of that? For some people, it’s hard to even pull back the slide.”

Ruben Santiago-Hudson, who played a New York City police captain on the ABC drama “Castle” and now plays an officer on the CBS police drama “East New York,” said he had set strict rules for himself since appearing in a play where a blank was fired so close to another actor at a rehearsal that it nearly damaged the actor’s eardrum.
“It’s OK to annoy people by how much you check and recheck the gun,” Mr. Santiago-Hudson said.
He said he made sure to never point a gun directly at another person — a point of contention in the “Rust” case.

Days after the shooting, which also wounded the director of “Rust,” Joel Souza, investigators interviewed one of the movie’s actors, Jensen Ackles, who told them that he does inspect his guns on set himself.
“I just always do my own personal checks because it’s a smart thing to do,” Mr. Ackles told the police, according to footage of the interview. But he noted that he did not expect his peers to do the same, telling the detectives that if actors were the final line of defense in the safety of a movie set then he “wouldn’t trust 99.9 percent of the people I work with.”

Legal experts said successfully prosecuting the charges against Mr. Baldwin would require the district attorney to demonstrate that he behaved negligently.
One challenge for prosecutors will be that Mr. Baldwin was told the gun did not contain live ammunition. James J. Brosnahan, a lawyer who represented the production company behind the movie “The Crow” after the actor Brandon Lee was fatally shot on set, said Mr. Baldwin’s mind-set at the time that he took the gun from Mr. Halls would probably be crucial for a judge or a jury.
“If a person is going to be negligent, you’ve got to prove that they knew something and they proceeded anyway,” Mr. Brosnahan said, giving an example that “they knew the speed limit was 70 miles per hour and they went 100.”

posted by jenfullmoon at 9:48 PM on January 22, 2023 [5 favorites]

WaPo: Alec Baldwin’s ‘Rust’ comments may have hurt him, some experts say
The actor deflected blame for the fatal film-set shooting in interviews and on social media. Was that a good idea?

“He should never have spoken out after the incident,” said Susan M. Tellem, a senior partner at California-based firm Tellem Grody PR, via email. “It set the stage for future legal problems, and here we are.”

“His training has dictated that he would get out in front of this, would get his viewpoint out in the court of public opinion, would get out all his statements, his interviews, and show the world that this was just a horrible accident,” said David M. Schwartz, a partner at the New York- and D.C.-based law firm Gerstman Schwartz LLP. “In the world of court and criminal law, this is a real mistake.”

"What he’s doing is potentially giving the government the ammunition against him.”

Though Baldwin probably had no malicious intent on the set that day, Nierman suggested that he could have curried far more public sympathy by accepting a modicum of responsibility.

“You can explain what happened. You can provide valuable context. You can make your case. But if you’re not fundamentally willing to accept responsibility, then you don’t bring closure. All you do is spark more discussion,” Nierman said. “Baldwin made his problem infinitely worse because he was so brazen as to position himself as a victim.”

Now that Baldwin is expected to be charged, Mariotti, the former federal prosecutor, said the actor should let his attorneys speak for him.

“Mr. Baldwin should exercise his right to remain silent,” he said, “which is what he should have done from the beginning.”

posted by jenfullmoon at 9:01 AM on January 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

I bet every Mefite has heard "Don't talk tot he police" but when you've just been involved in some kind of horrible accident like this its really difficult to follow that advice. Baldwin shouldn't have talked to the police that day without a lawyer. IMO the bigger mistake though was that he kept talking to the media and others to double and triple down on facts that were not supported by the recorded evidence. Now he looks like someone who lied to escape responsibility.
posted by interogative mood at 10:00 AM on January 23, 2023 [6 favorites]

He very blatantly lied that he didn't pull the trigger, a fact that was scientifically proven that he did.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:07 AM on January 23, 2023

Not proven in a court law yet so we'll see how it shakes out. I was shocked when he did that interview right after, amazing how people with the best counsel still won't SHUT UP when something potentially criminal happens.
posted by tiny frying pan at 11:12 AM on January 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

I wasn't shocked. Alec Baldwin has always struck me as a raging narcissist who's lived most of his life inside a bubble of wealth, fame, and public adulation, and thus mostly insulated from such mundanities as accountability for his own actions.
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:00 PM on January 23, 2023

Well, yeah. I knew all that. Still shocking when a celeb ignores his very expensive lawyers likely advice, cause they would be bonkers insane to tell him anything but SHUT IT! :)
posted by tiny frying pan at 1:27 PM on January 23, 2023

the official New Mexico Environment Department Occupational Health and Safety Bureau complaint Is an interesting read
It's a 23 page pdf:

'On Thursday, October 21, 2021, the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office issued a news
release in response to a workplace fatality and injury that occurred at approximately 1:47 p.m.

From October 26, 2021 through early April 2022, the Bureau continued its fatality
investigation

On October 9, 2021, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed texted Ms. Pickle about the amount of
Armorer days the Employer was willing to pay her for
Ms. Gutierrez-Reed informed Ms. Pickle that she still had to
train some actors, including actor/producer Alec Baldwin,

Later that day, on October 9, 2021, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed texted Ms. Pickle,
We already had guns jamming yesterday…I just feel like it’ll
end up being 10 Armorer days by the end of it…

On October 14, 2021, Ms. Pickle emailed Ms. Gutierrez-Reed and informed her
that she was focusing far more on her Armorer duties and not enough on her duties as Props Assistant.

On October 15, 2021, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed texted Ms. Pickle to express her concern
that Mr. Baldwin “never tried shooting with the holster” and wanted to ensure Mr. Baldwin was
ready for a scene the following day. Ms. Pickle informed her that “if there was more to be done,
he’d let you know.”

On October 16, 2021..two misfires occurred. In the first instance, Ms. Zachary
inadvertently fired a blank round as she finished loading a .45 caliber revolver

On October 17, 2021, one day after the two separate misfires involving firearms,
Ms. Gutierrez-Reed informed Ms. Pickle that she was running out of paid days at the Armorer’s
rate and if gunfire will continue on set, Ms. Pickle will have to speak with the producers. Ms.
Pickle replied to Ms. Gutierrez-Reed by informing her that there would be “No more trading (sic)
days” for the actors on set. Ms. Gutierrez-Reed then asked to clarify, “Training days?” Ms. Pickle
responded, “Like training Alec and such.”

On October 21, 2021, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed loaded a .45 caliber Colt revolver for
Mr. Baldwin with what she believed were dummy rounds, walked into the church, and handed the revolver to Mr. Halls. Ms. Gutierrez-Reed was under the impression that Mr. Halls would only be sitting in with the gun until Mr. Baldwin arrived inside the church. According to Ms. GutierrezReed’s interview, she told Mr. Halls, “…just let me know when Alec gets here. And then that way I’ll go ahead and check it for him, and we can start the scene and everything.” Ms. GutierrezReed left the church expecting Mr. Halls to notify her when Mr. Baldwin arrived so she could conduct a firearm safety check for Mr. Baldwin’s firearm. Shortly after Ms. Gutierrez-Reed left the church, Mr. Halls proceeded to hand the revolver to Alec Baldwin. Mr. Baldwin aimed the
revolver in Halyna Hutchins and Joel Souza’s direction and a projectile was fired, striking Ms.
Hutchins and Mr. Souza.

----
What a shitshow.
posted by yyz at 12:07 PM on January 24, 2023 [8 favorites]

wow, that's just so hard to read. I can't imagine all of the pain this has caused.
posted by hydra77 at 12:14 PM on January 24, 2023

Is this OSHA complaint completely separate from the charges by the AG? Was this document seen by the prosecutors, because I feel like it is damning to so many other people, especially Line Producer Gabrielle Pickle who approved all hours worked and had authority to counsel and discipline.

I have a hard time putting much of the blame on Gutierrez-Reed, when this was obviously a institutional failing. There's only so many ways one can say 'I need to train Mr. Baldwin, but I haven't been approved for the hours.' If the armorer doesn't have the ability to stop production due to unsafe circumstances, then they have nothing... Gutierrez-Reed says that the actors need to be trained, and Pickles says don't worry about it - we'll let you know if we need you more.

Total fines assessed by OSHA: $136,793.
posted by hydra77 at 12:29 PM on January 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

Once again seconding what I said before: IF NOBODY WANTS TO LISTEN TO YOU...and nobody wanted to listen to her about this. No matter what she said, it was ignored and it was going to be ignored due to the budget.

I wonder if anyone would have listened better if she was Hank Gutierrez-Reed, or if it's just the usual "nobody wants to listen to Casssandra" shite I always run into.

I really want someone to offer a class in "How To Get People To Listen To You And Do Something When You're Warning Them Something Bad Will Happen."
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:35 PM on January 24, 2023 [6 favorites]

But she still fucked up - those weren't dummy rounds.
posted by tiny frying pan at 1:05 PM on January 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

if she was Hank Gutierrez-Reed
Probably didn't help that Gutierrez-Reed was 24; Rust was her second film.
(She's the daughter of veteran Hollywood armorer Thell Reed.)
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:07 PM on January 24, 2023

I have a hard time putting much of the blame on Gutierrez-Reed, when this was obviously a institutional failing.

Yeah, in that report she comes across in a much better light, at least attempting to do the right thing.
It's obvious she thought that Baldwin needed more training with firearms.

Halls comes across as a little shit though.

--

Employer recognized the hazards associated with firearms and selected safety
bulletins that were designed to control and mitigate these recognized hazards as protocols for
employee protection. The Employer described these protocols as being enforced by Dave Halls, First Assistant Director and Safety Coordinator.

no corrective, investigative, or disciplinary action was taken by any member of management after the first and second firearm misfires. Dave Halls was physically present on set and aware of these misfires, and chose not to take any corrective, investigative, or disciplinary action.
posted by yyz at 1:16 PM on January 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

Dave Halls, ‘Rust’ Assistant Director, Gives Account of Shooting That Conflicts With Others’ Statements (Variety, Jan. 25, 2022) Halls describes "a tragic series of mistakes", "a system failure," and contradicts the testimony Gutierrez Reed gave in her OSHA deposition. During his deposition, Halls said he neither handed the gun to Baldwin, nor announced 'cold gun': According to Halls, Gutierrez Reed brought the gun into the building and showed him that it was empty — containing no dummies. She then handed it to Baldwin. A few minutes later, she returned and told him, “I put dummy rounds in the gun.” He said that she had decided to do so of her own accord.

“Because it was such a tight shot of this revolver, I think Hannah made a creative decision that, you know, dummy rounds should be in there to make sure that the gun looks like it’s loaded,” Halls testified. She showed Halls the gun again, and he saw three or four rounds — all of which appeared to be dummies because they had depressed primers. He did not remember whether she spun the cylinder or not. She then gave the gun back to Baldwin, Halls said.

"Investigators also heard contradictory statements from other eyewitnesses."
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:48 AM on January 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Charges (involuntary manslaughter, criminal negligence) were filed today. Statement of Probable Cause - Baldwin, Statement of Probable Cause - Guiterrez-Reed. "Baldwin and Reed Gutierrez each face up to 18 months in prison if convicted, plus a potential five-year enhancement for the use of a firearm."
"The affidavit also accuses Baldwin of failing in his duties as a producer and actor on 'Rust' to adequately oversee the production, and to ensure compliance with safety standards. Among other things, the affidavit accuses Baldwin of allowing the hiring of Gutierrez Reed, even though she was 'inexperienced and unqualified.'"
posted by Iris Gambol at 7:04 PM on January 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

Seems like Baldwin is being charged twice.
Once as Alec Baldwin actor and again as Alec Baldwin producer.

Producer credits can be given out like candy..
In Baldwins counter claim ( a 39 page pdf)
in response to various civil suits he states;

20. Rust had six credited producers: Ryan Smith, Nathan Klingher, Ryan Winterstern,
Matt DelPiano, Anjul Nigam, and Baldwin

21. Smith, individually and through his production company, Rust Movie Productions
LLC, was primarily responsible for Rust’s day-to-day operations.
22. Smith and the other producers pitched Rust to investors, secured financing, and set
the budget for the film.
23. Smith and his associate, Gabrielle Pickle, hired the crew for Rust.

37. In addition, Section 3 of the Producer Agreement provides that Baldwin “may not
engage the services of and/or facilities of any third party in connection with [Rust] without [Rust
Movie Productions LLC’s] prior written consent in each instance,” indicating that Baldwin had no
independent authority to make hiring decisions on Rust.

38. Baldwin had no role in hiring Gutierrez-Reed. He didn’t know she was being
considered as the armorer and didn’t recommend her or weigh in on her hiring.

--
posted by yyz at 8:44 AM on February 1, 2023

From Baldwins counter claim linked above there are a pair of chilling still images from a different scene with different actors ; page 31

'Here are still
images from the Rust filming where actor Travis Fimmel is pressing a cocked gun, with his finger
on the trigger, to the back of Brady Noon’s head.
Clearly, both believed the set was safe '

betcha both actors are saying there but for the grace of God.

--
posted by yyz at 9:07 AM on February 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

Yeah, if Baldwin's being charged as a producer and Gabrielle Pickle isn't, the prosecutor is clearly prioritizing making their political name rather than going after the people with primary responsibility. And people going "but it's a blue state! She's a democrat" -- going after unlikeable celebrities is a ecumenical sport. Look at this thread for example, Metafilter is left-leaning and yet it's pretty universally "fuck Alex Baldwin".
posted by tavella at 11:26 AM on February 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

Alec Baldwin and I may have similar politics, but he's been a yelly jerk for decades. He does not sound pleasant to deal with IRL, especially if any problems come up that make him angry. It's hard to have sympathy for the guy committing accidental murder of a supposed friend when he starts yelling and lying and throwing blame around elsewhere and lawsuits and all this shit.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:58 PM on February 1, 2023

Baldwin apparently made the mistake of talking to cops for hours afterwards without a lawyer present. It's entirely possible that he put himself in this position just by not keeping his mouth shut.
posted by Mitheral at 5:11 PM on February 1, 2023

Is it wrong to "throw blame elsewhere" if in fact, other people are primarily to blame? It was the armorer's job to monitor and safely load with appropriate types of ammunition; instead, she did not check the bullets she was loading and put a live one in. It was the assistant director's job to monitor safety across the whole set and specifically to check the weapon he was handing off; he did neither. Those were the people that had actual gun safety jobs. To be blunt, Baldwin's job was to look good on screen, and say what other people had written. Movie sets don't expect actors to handle gun safety in any way, because some of them are idiots.

I fundamentally do not like publicity-driven prosecutions, even if they are against assholes. And if the prosecution is trying to claim that Baldwin should get done for "allowing the hiring of Gutierrez Reed, even though she was 'inexperienced and unqualified'" and *not* the people that actually, y'know, hired Gutierrez, then yeah, it's publicity-driven.
posted by tavella at 6:12 PM on February 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

I dislike Baldwin's public persona; I dislike police questioning a possibly-shocky person after an accidental shooting, for hours, more. Baldwin was close enough for spatter, or he went to Hutchins after the shooting, because his bloodied clothes were taken into evidence. He was weeping outside the sheriff's office.

From the cross complaint, with illustrations:
"Police photos taken after the shooting show that boxes of ammunition were stored in the prop truck and prop cart, and loose ammunition was found all over the place. For example:

"Loose ammunition was found in the prop truck
"Loose ammunition was found in the prop cart
"Loose ammunition was found in bags" [...]

"Police photos confirm that guns were also stored loaded. This is another egregious safety violation by Gutierrez-Reed and [prop master Sarah] Zachry. And even the bandolier that Zachry gave to Baldwin—and which Baldwin was wearing on his body—contained live ammunition".
posted by Iris Gambol at 6:57 PM on February 1, 2023