Alec Baldwin's 'prop firearm' kills one, injures another

Sheriff's office: Alec Baldwin discharged prop gun that killed crew member, wounded director

Baldwin is one of the film's star actors and producers. He went to the sheriff's office willingly and provided a statement to investigators, sheriff's office spokesman Juan Ríos said.

www.santafenewmexican.com

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Actor Alec Baldwin discharged a "prop firearm" that killed a cinematographer and injured a the director of the movie Rust, being filmed on a set south of Santa Fe, a county sheriff's office spokesman said late Thursday.

Halyna Hutchins, 42 and the director of photography for the movie, died at University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque. The film's director, Joel Souza, was hospitalized in Santa Fe, Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office spokesman Juan Ríos said.

A source closed to the investigation said Baldwin, 63, was questioned by investigators late Thursday and was seen by a New Mexican reporter and photographer in tears.

Investigators are still trying to determine if the incident was an accident, Ríos said. No charges have been filed, and the investigation remains open, Ríos wrote in a news release.

The prop was fired at Bonanza Creek Ranch, where filming was underway, the sheriff's office said in an early evening news release. Baldwin stars in the production.

Hutchins died from her injuries after she was flown to University of New Mexico Hospital, according to the sheriff's office. Souza was taken to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, where he is receiving emergency care, the sheriff's office said. Attempts to get comment from Baldwin were unsuccessful.

“We received the devastating news this evening, that one of our members, Halyna Hutchins, the Director of Photography on a production called ‘Rust’ in New Mexico died from injuries sustained on the set,” John Lindley, the president of the International Cinematographers Guild Local 600, and Rebecca Rhine, the executive director, said in a statement, as reported by Variety. “The details are unclear at this moment, but we are working to learn more, and we support a full investigation into this tragic event. This is a terrible loss, and we mourn the passing of a member of our Guild’s family.”

Deputies were investigating how the accident occurred and "what type of projectile was discharged," the sheriff's office said in an earlier news release.

Rust Movie Productions did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Filming for Rust was set to continue into early November, according to a news release from the New Mexico Film Office. It's described as the story of a 13-year-old boy left to fend for himself and his younger brother following the death of their parents in 1880s Kansas, with New Mexico doubling for Kansas.

Guns firing blanks have been blamed for deaths in past movie productions. Online Hollywood news site Deadline reported, "Actor Jon-Erik Hexum was killed Oct. 18, 1984, on the set of the TV series Cover Up when he accidentally shot himself in the head with a gun loaded with blanks. And in 1993, Brandon Lee, the son of martial arts legend Bruce Lee, died after he was shot in the head by a gun firing blanks on the set of The Crow. Both incidents were determined to have been accidents."

This is a developing story and will be updated.

 

[themanwhowalks]

Yeah this is totaly normal, why does alec walk while young nigger is still on trial? the corruption in that trial is just insane...
have the DA and the Judge talk to a witness...

...Because she was the armorer, are you legitimately retarded

 

[DrearyDoomguy]

Unless he checked the cylinder, found no live ammo in the cylinder and then live ammo appeared, as if by magic, between him checking the cylinder and him firing the weapon, he had every reason to believe the gun had live ammo in it.

That's an argument for civil prosecution, not criminal. Alec Baldwin was given a gun and told it had a blank in it. He merely assumed the person who told him that was neither lying nor incompetent. The armorer was responsible for ensuring there was no live ammo in it. That was her job. She was the one who was found criminally responsible for the death, and rightly so.
Saying he shouldn't have been criminally charged for it is not the same thing as saying he shouldn't have legal culpability. This is not a hard concept and I don't know why people struggle to understand it. Just because you don't like the guy (I don't either) doesn't make it OK to send him to prison for something he was, as a matter of law, not criminally responsible for.

 

[Dr J]

Looks to me like if they might want to consider banning helicopters.

I think they did for many years because of the Twilight Zone/John Landis incident

 

[UnKillFill]

Why even bother wasting all of the time and money that this trial wasted if the writing was going to be on the wall from the beginning?
At this point, just fucking admit that we have one set of laws for us regular people and another set for our "betters". We already know it anyway.

 

[Historical Strelkov]

They also have to ignore the "never point the weapon at anything you do not intend to destroy" because that would fuck up the camera angles.
Hollywood actors are legitimately trained to handle firearms incorrectly.

Where did you get this information. This isn't true. Actors are not told to shoot directly at each other, that makes no sense.

 

[Dr J]

That's an argument for civil prosecution, not criminal. Alec Baldwin was given a gun and told it had a blank in it. He merely assumed the person who told him that was neither lying nor incompetent. The armorer was responsible for ensuring there was no live ammo in it. That was her job. She was the one who was found criminally responsible for the death, and rightly so.
Saying he shouldn't have been criminally charged for it is not the same thing as saying he shouldn't have legal culpability. This is not a hard concept and I don't know why people struggle to understand it. Just because you don't like the guy (I don't either) doesn't make it OK to send him to prison for something he was, as a matter of law, not criminally responsible for.

It's literally in New Mexico statute. Negligent homicide. Baldwin, by not checking the gun, was acting in a reckless and irresponsible manner that was likely to cause injury or death. The New Mexico Supreme Court actually heard a case exactly like this, a guy fired a gun he believed not to be loaded at another person and killed him. The New Mexico Supreme Court upheld his conviction because, as they stated in their ruling, it was his responsibility to make sure the gun wasn't actually loaded before he pointed it and fired it at someone.

A normal person who did what Baldwin did would be in prison right now

 

[MrJokerRager]

It's literally in New Mexico statute. Negligent homicide. Baldwin, by not checking the gun, was acting in a reckless and irresponsible manner that was likely to cause injury or death. The New Mexico Supreme Court actually heard a case exactly like this, a guy fired a gun he believed not to be loaded at another person and killed him. The New Mexico Supreme Court upheld his conviction because, as they stated in their ruling, it was his responsibility to make sure the gun wasn't actually loaded before he pointed it and fired it at someone.

A normal person who did what Baldwin did would be in prison right now

You see this gun?

I could shoot you right now in the middle of a Everytown Moms Demand Action rally, and get away with it.

 

[ZipDisk]

Where did you get this information.

For every Keanu reeves there are many more actors who will treat guns like props, they're not interested in learning how to mozambique drill, it's just play pretend for the job. Muzzle sweeping is one of the most common fucking stupid moves, and they do it constantly.

Baldwin's specific fuckup is that he had his finger on the trigger at all times. This is something an armorer should have caught and corrected, if not for safety than to keep the actor from looking like a retard.

The nepo baby's father is a sharpshooting champion and would have shut that shit down.

Seth Kenney, who was also working on Rust, is the one who identified that the prop ammo and the live ammo were marked identically.

Funny enough, all of this is known because of an investigation by New Mexico's version of OSHA. Kenney also claimed that this incident is unprecedented, so my desire for precedent is blueballed.

You are correct in that Baldwin should never have been pointing his gun at a human. The correct procedure for that scene would have been to set the equipment and NOT stick production crew in the sweep.

As to the OSHA incident, here you go:

https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/how-actors-should-handle-prop-guns-72859/

So yeah, I stand corrected.

 

[themanwhowalks]

It's literally in New Mexico statute. Negligent homicide. Baldwin, by not checking the gun, was acting in a reckless and irresponsible manner that was likely to cause injury or death. The New Mexico Supreme Court actually heard a case exactly like this, a guy fired a gun he believed not to be loaded at another person and killed him. The New Mexico Supreme Court upheld his conviction because, as they stated in their ruling, it was his responsibility to make sure the gun wasn't actually loaded before he pointed it and fired it at someone.

A normal person who did what Baldwin did would be in prison right now

Mishandling a firearm in your own home is not analogous at all to this situation. Its just not. He was given a gun which he was told was loaded with blanks -- blanks that are designed to look identical live rounds. The person who was negligent was the armorer. I don't have a favorable view of Baldwin, but this was not his fault, your entirely missing the substance of the case here.

People who don't handle firearms often make stupid mistakes with them, even people who handle them everyday make stupid mistakes.

 

[MadStan]

Why even bother wasting all of the time and money that this trial wasted if the writing was going to be on the wall from the beginning?
At this point, just fucking admit that we have one set of laws for us regular people and another set for our "betters". We already know it anyway.

That’s not what happened here.

We witnessed gross misconduct by the government in its case; and we witnessed a legal maneuver tried by thousands of lawyers every year, and hardly seldom ever successful.

To see a case dismissed…with prejudice…is very rare indeed. It was more than a misconduct. If you watch the judges comments she almost hinted to the prosecutors they were borderline guilty of Bad Faith - I.e. subject to potential sanctioning to include discipline.

The judge was furious.

But to hire lawyers capable of bringing a motion for dismissal together that actually held weight is a multimillion dollar activity involving 24/7 control, endless follow up of leads and orchestration on the highest level.

So in that regard you are 100% right, only wealth could have purchased that kind of talent.but the misconduct had to be real to get a sanction of dismissal with prejudice.

 

[Ice Gun Ninja]

IDK why they even brought in Morresy as special prosecutor. She is a defence attorney in the first place.

 

[inception_state]

Keep an eye out for the armorers case. This government misconduct could easily result in a retrial if not her immediate release. Her attorneys will be with a petition probably by tomorrow

That's pretty doubtful, apparently the armorer's lawyer knew about this evidence because he had the guy storing the ammo on his witness list. He just chose not to call him after realizing that the ammo was not helpful to his case. He can't claim a Brady violation on evidence he knew about, but chose not to use.

I listened to the trial, the prosecutor was an accident waiting to happen. She had very low emotional intelligence, and would get aggressive with state witnesses. When she was told to tone down the aggression, she would just be condescending. There’s not a good bone in her body. What should’ve been an easy case (the armorer is already in jail) was totally fucked up, first by losing the ability to call Baldwin a producer and finally by trying to deny rights for the accused. This dumb bitch probably commits brady violations daily against the dregs of society, but she’s got hollywood royalty. She’s way too full of herself to do things the right way, and god forbid she ever becomes a judge.

I think Baldwin murdered that woman and should be held accountable. But this prosecutor was ty beard levels of “it’s already over”.

She's a career defense attorney, lmao. She got called in as a special prosecutor to try to clean up this clusterfuck of a case. Kari Morrissey was abrasive but seemed pretty competent. The cops were absolutely retarded though. The detective in charge of the case, Hancock, was a complete mess. She was the one with the awful lip filler and answered "I don't know" most of the time despite being the lead investigator on the case.

The main takeaway from this trial is that dropping seven figures on a legal warchest and rushing a disorganized prosecution can pay off.

 

[Historical Strelkov]

this incident is unprecedented, so my desire for precedent is blueballed.

The precedent was Brandon Lee's death.
They failed every single thing in the book to the point it looks intentional.
1. Do not have live fire ammo anywhere near a set. [Treat every gun like its loaded]
2. Do not point blank firing guns directly at actors (Blank firearms are to be aimed at an angle away from actors) [Do not point a gun at anything you don't want to destroy]
3. Always check your prop firearm before each take (Armorer in front of Actor) [Always know the status of your firearm]
4. Do not treat guns like a toy
5. DON'T POINT GUNS YOU DON'T KNOW THE STATUS OF AT THE CREW?
There are Airsoft guns and non-firing mockups for pointing directly at people, and Rubber guns specifically for just playing around with and doing stunts.
There are special plugged barrel guns for suicide shots and close up shots.

 

[Dr J]

He was given a gun which he was told was loaded with blanks -- blanks that are designed to look identical live rounds

A blank does not look identical to a live round. For starters there's no fucking bullet in it, just glue or paper. The kind of round you're talking about - the dummy rounds they use when they need a close-up and need it to look like a real bullet - they also don't look like live rounds. There's no primer or gunpowder in them, just plastic BBs which, when you shake them, you would know immediately they aren't real bullets.

Alec Baldwin's been in films for what? 30 years? 40 years? Handled guns in numerous films. He should, at this point, know proper precaution and procedure. He was just too arrogant to follow them

The person who was negligent was the armorer

Baldwin was the producer, he was at least partly responsible for hiring her in the first place, so the liability still ultimately rests with him

your entirely missing the substance of the case here.

No, you're missing the substance of the case here. Even if the armourer was utterly incompetent (which she was) and the prop guy who handed him the gun was utterly incompetent (which he was), it's still ultimately his responsibility to check the gun before he pointed it at someone and fired it. Even if it was a blank. Blanks aren't harmless, they still expel burning gunpowder and paper, and can still cause harm.

Because he abdicated his responsibility, a woman is now dead. A child is now without a mother

People who don't handle firearms often make stupid mistakes with them

Yes and you would think that Baldwin, who is a massive gun control advocate and anti-gun activist and who actually sits on the board for a pro-gun control lobbying organisation, would understand that guns are inherently dangerous when improperly handled more than anyone else.

 

[ZipDisk]

That's the unprecedented part, the live ammo WAS marked the same way as the prop ammo.
With Brandon Lee, it was how the blank was packed. In this case, every fucking round was a dice roll.

Baldwin had his finger on the trigger the entire time. At this point it is absolutely a choice to be so ignorant about firearms. The Backstage article goes into the fact there are not actually set standards for film set firearm safety, which is nuts. It's literally playing with guns, with the armorer taking the place of the adult. Needless to say, rainbow hair wasn't much of an adult.

And yes Strelkov, all your shit was on the list.

 

[Historical Strelkov]

That's the unprecedented part, the live ammo WAS marked the same way as the prop ammo.
With Brandon Lee, it was how the blank was packed. In this case, every fucking round was a dice roll.

Baldwin had his finger on the trigger the entire time. At this point it is absolutely a choice to be so ignorant about firearms. The Backstage article goes into the fact there are not actually set standards for film set firearm safety, which is nuts. It's literally playing with guns, with the armorer taking the place of the adult. Needless to say, rainbow hair wasn't much of an adult.

And yes Strelkov, all your shit was on the list.

Ok I get your meaning there about unprecedented. I was thinking "Rule precedent" you're pointing out "Horrible Failure and utter disregard precedent" I agree completely. This is unprecedented.

 

[Fresh]

Prosecutor totally whiffs what should've been a fairly easy to win negligent manslaughter case because agents of the state literally cannot stop themselves from being corrupt... am I getting this right?

Lawfags, does this open up the armourers case for appeal or anything else? The bullets that were the source of all the contention were relevant in her case too from the sounds of it

Her poor kids man

 

[ZipDisk]

The armorer was smoking doobs, snorting marching powder, and plinking with the guns for the movie when clocked out. Speculation was the reason she fucked up was because of a hangover.

The dumb bitches official defense was "I checked the ammo most of the time". This was ammo that was rattling around in the back seat of her car. You know, as you do.

I think there should be legal precedent established in this case, but instead we got good ol dubjep.

I do find it interesting that Gutierrez Reed pointed the finger at Seth Kinney, and he pointed the finger right back. He was the source on the New Mexico version of OSHA report, as well as the one who provied the actual firearms.

Gutierrez Reed feels "super bad" about all this. The .45 did exactly what .45's do, blew a big ol exit wound through a lung.

Baldwin's defense is that he "didn't pull the trigger". By all regards, that was false, but the feds fumble fucked the gun, so we'll never really know.

 

[AnOminous]

Yes, it was negligent homicide. New Mexico literally has this in their statute, you're still liable for homicide if you fire a gun you believe not to be loaded at someone because it's your responsibility to make sure the weapon isn't actually loaded.

He thought it was a fucking prop. But yes, let's jack up those red flag laws. Let's just rape the Second Amendment more. You fucking idiot.

 

[Dr J]

That's the unprecedented part, the live ammo WAS marked the same way as the prop ammo.

Even if it was marked the same way, you'd know immediately from looking at it, never mind shaking it, whether what you had was a dummy round or a real bullet

With Brandon Lee, it was how the blank was packed. In this case, every fucking round was a dice roll.

With Brandon Lee the Mickey Mouse organisation that made the dummy rounds removed the gunpowder but didn't remove the primer. So when whoever pulled the trigger on the dummy round, they didn't realise the primer alone was enough to eject the bullet from its casing but not clear the barrel. Then when the same person fired a blank through the same gun, it expelled the bullet that was lodged in the barrel and killed Brandon

He thought it was a fucking prop.

There are no 'props'. They're real fucking guns with fake bullets in them. Again, Baldwin's a 40 year veteran of Hollywood. He should know this stuff better than most

But yes, let's jack up those red flag laws.

Who the hell said anything about red flag laws?