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.

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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.

 

[Smug Cat]

Baldwin has repeatedly, and gleefully, done unto others what is being done to him. Save your outrage.

I don't care about Baldwin. I care about intellectual honesty and not being a pathetic sperg making shit up because you really want it to be real. You guys are SJW-tier in this thread.

 

[kcbbq]

I don't care about Baldwin. I care about intellectual honesty and not being a pathetic sperg making shit up because you really want it to be real. You guys are SJW-tier in this thread.

What have I made up in this thread?

 

[waffle]

The film industry has all kinds of standards and controls with regard to live ammunition. I do agree that blaming this on Baldwin is silly. This is not a situation where the normal rules of gun safety apply. I just think that it's kinda jokes that it happened to him, because he's the kind of guy would make all kinds of scurrilous claims about somebody else if they were in his.shoes.

 

[MrJokerRager]

Well it's confirmed that Alec Baldwin doesn't own guns in California at minimum.

To buy a gun of any kind here, they make you take a pretty simple test that basically quizzes you on gun safety rules.

And then after the 10 day waiting period, the firearms dealer has to show the buyer over how to fire, reload, lock the bolt and turn on the safety.

All this bullshit to make plebs feel a hard time over buying one here.

This nigger faggot killed off the gun control lobby's gun safety talking points. Which is a good thing to be honest.

 

[Starscreams Cape]

The local union said this film's prop master wasn't a member of their union. Makes me think there just weren't union people on set. Also, it's a low-budget film, so they likely didn’t have as many people to make up a proper chain of command. A lot more room for something to fuck up, which it did.

I wonder if we'll find some pro-union tweets from Baldwin, who apparently didn't want to bother with them on his movie. Probably to save a few shekels.

I hate the guy but if it was an accident then it was an accident. Unfortunately for the lady who died he's now getting a taste of the karma he's put out into the world.

Will this change him as a person?

No.

 

[BradCarter]

I kinda want this to be the most sadistic and fucked up game of Russian roulette ever. Give a mentally unstable actor a revolver, 5 blanks, 1 live round and spin the cylinder. What happens next is up to God.

 

[SaintChristopher69]

Prop guns usually fire blanks. The cartridges used contain an explosive that makes it look like there’s a bullet, but there will be no bullet in the cartridge. The explosives can sometimes malfunction though, which in this case caused a fatality.

I'd like to know the circumstances surrounding the incident, though. Was Baldwin messing around with the gun? Were they rehearsing?

 

[Pocket Dragoon]

I kinda want this to be the most sadistic and fucked up game of Russian roulette ever. Give a mentally unstable actor a revolver, 5 blanks, 1 live round and spin the cylinder. What happens next is up to God.

It's not Russian Roulette if he's pointing it at someone else.

Edit: unless its like that last scene with two corrupt cops in "Dirty".

 

[BradCarter]

It's not Russian Roulette if he's pointing it at someone else.

Sorry, jogger roulette?

 

[Not Really Here]

It's not Russian Roulette if he's pointing it at someone else.

Shut up, entertainment can't be good unless a sped is pointing a gun at crew.

 

[Starscreams Cape]

But here's something else. As a gun owner I can say this - If someone hands me a prop gun and tells me to shoot another actor with it in scene I'm asking three times if the gun has been checked before I do the scene.

If the cinematographer is telling me to fire at the camera to get a straight on shot I'm going to tell them that I'm not going to aim this where it could possibly hit anyone - frame the shot and position yourself accordingly.

But I guess that's the difference between a gun loving, flyover country yokel and a slick Hollywood faggot.

 

[Echo_Ender]

I don't care about Baldwin. I care about intellectual honesty and not being a pathetic sperg making shit up because you really want it to be real. You guys are SJW-tier in this thread.

You realize what site you're on, right?

Tragic and unfortunate or not, Baldwin is a shithead and the hilarity of an anti-gun sperg shooting someone is comedy gold.

 

[byuu]

But here's something else. As a gun owner I can say this. If someone hands me a prop gun and tells me to shoot another actor with it in scene I'm asking three times if the gun has been checked before I do the scene.

If the cinematographer is telling me to fire at the camera to get a straight on shot I'm going to tell them that I'm not going to aim this where it could possibly hit anyone.

A veteran actor is gonna do what the prop guys tells them to do and aim where the director is telling him to aim.
If it's some stuck crap that got blown out from the blank you can't even expect it to shoot out straight.

You niggers are like children who got told by Smokey the Bear to not play with gasoline crying about a stuntman pouring gasoline over himself.

 

[Getting tard comed]

Y'all niggas got problems. Alec Baldwin is an idiot with bad political takes, but that is completely irrelevant to the actual facts of what happened here. Some of you are so transparently twisting the facts available or straight up making shit up because you want it to be his fault. Really wanting something to be true doesn't make it real. Like another poster upthread said, that is genuinely pathetic. It's not "moralfagging" or "Baldwin stanning" to point out that your obvious fanfiction doesn't make any sense. You're just an idiot.

So it's completely made up and you spread completely fake shit but you're arguing it's "accurate" despite being fake because it feels to you like it should be true. Ok exceptional individual.

Please explain where anyone has brought up made up shit and what you think are the actual facts of the situation are.

These are the facts afaik:
Baldwin shot a gun that had a bullet in it that went through the cinematographer and hit the director in the clavicle.

The prop master obviously didn't check if the gun was loaded.

Baldwin is a known drunkard with anger issues.

Baldwin also was a producer on the film.

Baldwin also was one of if not the only 'star' to bring in funding for this movie to be made in the first place.

On a film production with guns they hired a non union prop master that Baldwin is directly or indirectly responsible for.

What facts are made up?

Nobody has said he was drunk or angry, but it isn't exactly difficult to imagine he could have been considering his past. It's also incredibly hard for me to imagine any situation where they were actually filming that both the cinematographer and the director could both be hit.

I don't have to make up shit to notice that's an incredibly odd situation to occur.

And yes, it is moralfagging to suggest or tell people they are weird, or sperging, or rude, or bad, or wrong to pile on a notorious asshole and hypocrite.

FUCK YOU AND YOUR MORAL FAGGING.

I don't care and I'm tired of pretending to be the bigger person. Nothing is intellectually dishonest about shaudenfroid and enjoying shitty things happening to shitty people. You are a pussy and a simp and a cuck to think otherwise.

TOPHATS ALL DAY!

 

[X Pac Heat]

"It's not Baldwins fault, guys!!!!"

I know we got a lot of reddit-tier moral fags on here these days, but making fun of the anti gun faggot for being a complete retard with his "prop gun" is still funny.

 

[Starscreams Cape]

A veteran actor is gonna do what the prop guys tells them to do and aim where the director is telling him to aim.
If it's some stuck crap that got blown out from the blank you can't even expect it to shoot out straight.

You niggers are like children who got told by Smokey the Bear to not play with gasoline crying about a stuntman pouring gasoline over himself.

Except for the only other time this happened - Brandon Lee, where the projectile went exactly where it was aimed.

And yes, if you have to aim at another actor for the scene you do it. If you don't have to (for the head on shot for instance) anyone with a modicum of common sense is going to feel uncomfortable aiming the gun at a crew member.

Comparing guns and gun safety to gasoline stunts is fucking retarded.

 

[RodgerDodger]

If any of this is remotely true then everyone involved will deservedly be sued into another dimension even if there are no criminal charges. Handing a "hot gun" to an actor without them knowing, in a situation where presumably he has to point it down the lens (the only circumstance I can think of where both the DP and the Director would be hit by the same bullet) requires a level of negligence and incompetence even greater than the fuckup that killed Brandon Lee - that was at least someone failing to spot a problem with a prop, but this sounds like the gun was working as intended. Everyone from the props guy to the studio itself is going to be buried in lawsuits and never make a movie again, and quite right too. If someone really mistook a real gun capable of firing live rounds for a prop gun that can't, that's a criminal level of negligence that almost defies belief. But we all of us have worked places where people are that bad at their jobs, it happens. As an actor you can't second-guess the safety professionals on set - that's going to put you in more danger than blindly trusting them, and open you up to all sorts of liabilities. Baldwin had the right to assume the gun he was holding was the right one, because there's a well-paid guy on set whose exact job it is to make sure that is the case.

I don't like Alec Baldwin. But he's probably the least responsible person here. For some of you guys to assume he was drunk or shooting a loaded gun wildly around a set for some reason (he has decades of experience on sets where there are guns, real and fake) makes you look really fucking pathetic. Like some sped posting an obviously faked and unsourced text image saying he was going all Yosemite Sam on set and you morons falling for it. Jesus fuck, if ANY actor was that irresponsible they wouldn't have the career Baldwin has had, especially considering he's a massive asshole as has been well documented.

Alec Baldwin is suffering right now, and if that's the caveman level of schadenfreude that gets you off, don't go complaining the next time some leftoid celebrates something horrible happening to someone you respect because they don't like their opinions. Alec Baldwin deserves punishment for the bad things he's done over the years, his hypocrisy, his elitist arrogance, his appalling political views, but not for this. This sounds (unless these sources are completely wrong, which I acknowledge is possible) like he actually is one of the victims here.

Baldwin's culpability if any will come from one of 2 directions. His involvement as a producer in using unqualified safety personel. The other is the question of why he was firing a gun at the directors? Was it part of a scene? Was it Alec Baldwin being Alec Baldwin and terrorizing coworkers?

 

[Billy Beer]

More importantly, are they vaccinated? Did Halyna die of covid? Did Baldwin give her a shot of covid and was the set prop master guy vaccinated?

 

[kobebyarlant]

I don't care about Baldwin. I care about intellectual honesty and not being a pathetic sperg making shit up because you really want it to be real. You guys are SJW-tier in this thread.

Y'all niggas got problems. Alec Baldwin is an idiot with bad political takes, but that is completely irrelevant to the actual facts of what happened here. Some of you are so transparently twisting the facts available or straight up making shit up because you want it to be his fault. Really wanting something to be true doesn't make it real. Like another poster upthread said, that is genuinely pathetic. It's not "moralfagging" or "Baldwin stanning" to point out that your obvious fanfiction doesn't make any sense. You're just an idiot.

So it's completely made up and you spread completely fake shit but you're arguing it's "accurate" despite being fake because it feels to you like it should be true. Ok exceptional individual.

Tell me then, in what circumstance does an actor point and accidentally shoot a dangerous firearm at production staff then? Where is that in the script? They weren't actors. It wasn't a scene gone wrong like in The Crow. Even if it magically went off on it's own it shouldn't have been pointed at anyone to begin with. It's called basic firearm safety you exceptional individual.

 

[Smug Cat]

Please explain where anyone has brought up made up shit and what you think are the actual facts of the situation are.

These are the facts afaik:
Baldwin shot a gun that had a bullet in it that went through the cinematographer and hit the director in the clavicle.

The prop master obviously didn't check if the gun was loaded.

Baldwin is a known drunkard with anger issues.

Baldwin also was a producer on the film.

Baldwin also was one of if not the only 'star' to bring in funding for this movie to be made in the first place.

On a film production with guns they hired a non union prop master that Baldwin is directly or indirectly responsible for.

What facts are made up?

Nobody has said he was drunk or angry, but it isn't exactly difficult to imagine he could have been considering his past. It's also incredibly hard for me to imagine any situation where they were actually filming that both the cinematographer and the director could both be hit.

I don't have to make up shit to notice that's an incredibly odd situation to occur.

And yes, it is moralfagging to suggest or tell people they are weird, or sperging, or rude, or bad, or wrong to pile on a notorious asshole and hypocrite.

FUCK YOU AND YOUR MORAL FAGGING.

I don't care and I'm tired of pretending to be the bigger person. Nothing is intellectually dishonest about shaudenfroid and enjoying shitty things happening to shitty people. You are a pussy and a simp and a cuck to think otherwise.

TOPHATS ALL DAY!

Wow that's a whole lot of super melodramatic words to cry about being called a retard for acting retarded.