Glad he got off. I always thought it was bullshit that anyone would try to hold him accountable. The weapons expert, yes. The actor who was told the prop was safe, hell no.
Yes and no. The circumstances surrounding the death were… Not great. Evidence of Baldwin playing with the weapon, pretending to fire it, aiming it at cast and crew, etc… Plus there’s the whole “they were filming during a strike, and Baldwin (who was also the executive producer) went out of his way to hire an unqualified scab as a weapons master” part of things too.
I don't think that's accurate but I think the set did have scabs as it was during strike and there was coverage back then of this.
Armorer was under qualified and over work, which is normal for sets but does make you wonder how much that impacted her performance. There were also reports of understanding but that's just business 101 nowadays.
I am not saying this case is one way or the other but y'all acting like it is definitely not corruption when statistical analysis indicates that wealthy perps get away with murder.
Remember that guy that did epstein settlement in FL? His career went pretty well until he got caught with bunker bitch nomination and it came out that he knew the facts and still settled.
I still think she fucked up, I am not going to change my mind on technically for either of them tho.
Him being "an owner" and creating a culture where it happened in my opinion needs to be called out. This whole blame the intern bullshit is getting tiring.
Owner is always "dindu nuffin mate" tho
At the end of the day we sill have a dead person and state resources wasted, just losing all around.
In the article it mentions how the evidence came to light after her conviction. I don’t know if that means her appeal changes because of this, but it seems to me like this evidence only affected Baldwin’s case and how the prosecution handled it.
Expensive lawyers are better about using slip ups to get their clients free, but that doesn’t mean that the only difference between the two was money.
They’re not fake guns; they’re real guns with what was supposed to be fake ammo. Because the gun in question was a revolver, the ammo must also look real since you can see the tips of the bullets in the cylinder. Typically, there’s a hole in the side of the casing indicating that it’s a dummy round, but you can no longer see that once it’s been loaded into the gun.
Whether or not you believe what you’re calling “gun culture,” the fact that the gun in question is a revolver is one of the most relevant facts of the case.
A semi-automatic pistol, which is to say a single-hand firearm that is meant to be fired without being steadied against the user’s body where the ammunition is fed up the handle into to back of the barrel after each shot, until the magazine is exhausted, will not load the next round if you fire a blank. It relies on there being a bullet in the barrel to contain pressure long enough to push a mechanism that pops out the old bullet case and slides the next round into the chamber. In order for a semi-auto to use blanks, you have to modify it in such a way that you can no long fire live ammunition without destroying the gun.
Revolvers do not need such modification. Revolvers have a cylinder with boreholes running through it that form the chambers for the rounds. Pulling the trigger or cocking the hammer rotates the cylinder to the chamber, no pressure from the last round needed. This means that idiots on film sets can grab a revolver intended as a prop, put real live ammo in and target shoot in between takes and eventually mix up live and dummy ammo, causing people to be killed.
This means that idiots on film sets can grab a revolver intended as a prop, put real live ammo in and target shoot in between takes and eventually mix up live and dummy ammo, causing people to be killed.
I thought they were arguing that the gun that was supposed to come with fake ammo actually came with real ammo? To me it sounds like the gun supplier should be held liable?
The person who supplied the gun, the armorer, was held responsible. It was her job to make sure the guns were kept safe and she failed. She was found guilty already. Baldwin was on trial because statements he made to police regarding the incident were found to be inconsistent with the facts found through investigation, which were concerning enough to warrant a trial. The prosecution then fucked up so hard he can’t be retried.
I meant I thought the prop supplier should be held liable, since the article I read about it previously, had said that a box of ammo came from the prop supplier, Seth Kenney, and that it matched the ammo that was used that killed Hutchins, and that’s why I was thinking the prop supplier should be held liable.
If that’s the case I agree. Bringing live ammo onto a movie set is a huge no-no, and if it was his round that killed the AD he certainly bears some responsibility.
It is not about you, specifically. One people do not make a culture. But see, what I find baffling is that real guns are taken into movie sets, when they repeatedly have been used to kill cast and crew members since decades ago, and it is still not prohibited. School shootings, attempted assassination of presidential candidates, Wal-Mart shootings with guns sold in place, bar massacres, etc. they all come from this gun culture.
Take a look at user Thorny_Insight higly upvoted comment. While I guess I should be appreciative of its informative content, I just find violent that, without any warning, they link to a photograph of a loaded revolver pointing at the viewer’s face without realizing that is probably kind of fucked up. That’s what baffles me, like, no fucking kidding those guns are real?! A man was killed. Then they show me a photograph of a loaded revolver pointing at my face to demonstrate how real real guns look like. I hope you see my point.
Because the gun in question was a revolver, the ammo must also look real
I have seen so much bad science, like basic physics mistakes, in movies that that’s not really true. The average movie goer isn’t going to know what the difference between a fake and real revolver by sight.
That’s not the point. If you’re swinging around a semi-automatic pistol with an empty magazine, nobody will know. However, with a revolver, you need to load it with real-looking bullets for close-up shots. Of course, at a distance, you can use lesser-quality prop guns.
Or you can create, from scratch, purpose built guns with the same spec, but are made of materials(like aluminum) that the holder will know is fake from the moment they pick it up. For larger pieces, you could include a co2 mechanism to recreate recoil and include an LED to light up with a trigger pull for sfx people to use as a reference. Pretty sure some of these things already exist.
And quite frankly, the audience doesn’t deserve a perfect recreation if it means putting people in harms way. There’s a thing call Suspension of Disbelief that seems to be in short supply these days. Never bring the CinemaSins guy to a traditional Japanese theater. The Kuroko stagehands would give him an hearth attack.
There was a Jason Statham movie, The Mechanic, I think that had some ‘cool guy target practice in the woods moment’ and they were blasting off rounds and did a cool slo-mo so you could clearly see that they were firing crimped blanks. I’m sure next to no one noticed.
Even less so in Dear John when Channing Tatum’s M4 turns into an M249 so you can see the links of the belt flying out when he shoots at someone.
Point being, don’t leave town to dodge safety regulations and be surprised when unsafety happens.
I was going to say there’s no way those fake rubber guns or toy guns can be dangerous but then I remembered a police officer could shoot someone especially in america
The prosecution brought an envelope of bullets into the courtroom but had never notified the defense they had them. That would be a BIG fucking ‘nope’ in any court case.
That’s so fucking stupid it makes me question whether they intentionally tanked the case. This aspect of evidence disclosure is literally covered in My Cousin Vinny: youtu.be/uaoymfY9Kw0
Now I’m very curious. It looks like the question revolves around how, exactly, the police got a hold of the ammunition involved?
Were you not ‘very curious’ enough to actually look at literally any of the real and active reporting on this before your comment?
There was no question as to ‘how, exactly, the police got a hold of the ammunition involved’ and it is a core fact among the details of why case was dismissed.
They even played the officer’s bodycam footage of an early formal interview of the former officer that brought the bullets in as evidence (that the officer on the stand pitifully tried to pretend wasn’t an interview) in which the prosecutor was present. The evidence was intentionally filed under another case number so it wouldn’t be associated with Baldwin’s case (or the Reed case that I believe was ongoing when it was actually brought in). And THEN, cherry on top, they also discovered while looking at the undisclosed bullet evidence in this court, despite the prosecutors claims that the bullets were not associated with the Rust set thus not counted as evidence, that there were matching bullets of the type that were on the Rust set.
It’s among the craziest prosecutorial malfeasance shit I’ve ever seen from a high profile, video recorded court proceeding. One prosecutor resigned and LEFT earlier in the day as things were unraveling, and then the prosecutor that was still there put herself on the stand as-a-prosecution-witness to give testimony about the bullets, which even allowed the defense to question her about witness statements that she called Baldwin a cocksucker, about witness statements that she called Baldwin an arrogant prick, and about witness statements that she would ‘teach him a lesson’. In the context of a lawyer, putting oneself on the witness stand as a lawyer in the case, even as a prosecutor, is mental breakdown levels of personal desperation, even if they want to claim it was an attempt to preserve an appeal of the dismissal.
The word for signaling something is “cue”. A queue is a bunch of people in line; the words are homonyms. They are using “que” as a joke due to the similar spelling and somewhat similar pronunciation.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the case with prejudice based on the misconduct of police and prosecutors over the withholding of evidence from the defense in the shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film “Rust.”
“Grr I am so angry the police withheld evidence so you weren’t able to be properly charged that I’m going to make sure no one can ever charge you for it again this effectively ensuring the police and prosecutors won”
"We can't possibly determine the truth in this circumstance because officers of the court and the law both conspired to establish a pre-determined outcome by misusing their authority and resources, so we'll ensure that you can't be charged again."
Maybe cops and lawyers should play by the rules if they want the law to put people in prison.
Well, then I guess everyone involved got what they wanted. Are you upset because things didn't go the way they were never going to go? It was obvious from the outset that he would never step foot in prison even outside of this conspiracy to withhold evidence.
(Northern) New Mexico is a fairly left leaning state that increasingly gets a lot of money from the film industry and a shocking number of celebrities live out near Santa Fe. Considering the long history of tragic and pointless deaths due to poor safety practices on film sets, there is a very strong incentive to not prosecute these crimes.
But that would be the DA and prosecution, not the cops. Who are, like all cops, right wing dipshit bastards. And New Mexico has increasingly had conflicts between the government and the police with cops openly refusing to enforce laws they don’t like.
So yeah. Kind of a shitshow all around. But for anyone to think the cops are going to bat for Alec Baldwin? Holy shit.
The state should not be able to keep charging someone till they get it right. Thats the principal behind this dismissal. If the state can keep coming back to charge you we might as well be the Soviet Union.
The friction is that Alec is not just an actor on that set, he’s also a producer so he has extra responsibilities.
Yes.
But in that case, the cops and prosecutors fucked up and the judge has taken the right course of action as prescribed by the courts.
No. If the prosecutors fucked up on an otherwise valid case, discipline them and retry the case. Regardless or innocence or guilt, everyone should have a fair trial.
That’s how the court system works. A fair trial also means for the accused. Otherwise, nothing stops the prosecutors of binding the accused in the court system until he runs out of money.
The moment that the prosecution kept an evidence from the defense, the trial wasn’t fair for the accused.
I get the frustration, but the other way around opens up the court system for a lot more abuse than we see now.
If you want to argue about changing the court system, I agree with you, but it is out of scope for that case.
Producers should have zero input on this. “I put money into this film. I insist on being allowed to play with every firearm on set” is patently stupid.
Their responsibilities begin and end with ensuring that people have been hired to be responsible for that. They did. Those people were (in my opinion) criminally negligent. But (if memory serves) the AD almost immediately turned and begged for a deal and the armorer makes the average gravy seal look intelligent. Which, like most of these tragic and pointless deaths, speaks more toward industry wide accreditation and vetting processes.
Because, again, just because someone has money doesn’t mean they understand gun safety. And the last thing we want is someone who played Call of Duty while getting a blowie last night insisting they know better.
I think the only nuance I would make is that the investigation should determine if Alec Baldwin, the producer, did his due diligence with the responsibilities that he has on set.
I did not follow the trial, so I don’t know what has been done in this case.
On a movie set where everything is fake and you have an on-set armorer whose job it is to make sure everything is, indeed, safe, it’s a little bit different.
There’s no expectation that a gun on a movie set would be real and firing real bullets.
I keep trying to explain that to people too. The whole point of having an on-set armorer is so the actor can stay in their headspace and not have to worry about checking to see if a gun is loaded with live ammo when their character is supposed to assume it is.
You either keep yourself in the headspace where your character is shooting a loaded gun and you give a good performance, or you do firearm safety checks. It can’t be both. Maybe you’ve never done any acting, but it really can’t be both.
Again, not if you want a good performance. And I am guessing your acting did not involve shooting a realistic weapon on a realistic set in a major motion picture.
People's responses to this comment really highlights the defects in the US gun culture. Justifying Alec's handling of the gun is the issue that we have, when guns are around you act like all of them a load and you handle them as such until you personally verified that it is unloaded and even then you deff don't fuck around with it.
When people act like this, accidents really should not happen. When they do, people should reflect on why it happened, instead of focusing on cover up and blaming lower level wage slave.
Would you not expect someone driving a semi truck on a movie set to know how to drive safely even if the production is paying some dude to be an “Automobile Safety Coordinator”?
The actor that played gimli is over 6 foot tall. There’s never been a 200 foot tall lizard attacking Tokyo. You can shoot a movie with guns safely without violating the most basic safety rules.
If you hire roofers, tell them to fuck off when they give you a safety orientation, and you’ve already seen them drop two hammers off the roof, can you really say it’s not your fault when you get clobbered?
Ok, so you’re an actor. You pick up the gun, you see bullets in it. You were trained that these are dummy rounds. You are operating in a professional environment where you were trained to expect what you have found.
What do you do?
Ok say you object, ask for a review. They review it. You pick up the gun, you see bullets in it. Now what do you do?
Half cock the pistol swing open the load gate and spin the cylinder 6 times. If you see a primer then you stop and ask a question. This isn’t a 30-minute project, it takes 30 secs. Dummy rounds don’t have primers, they even drill them so that it is obvious. 30-sec check.
All guns are loaded until you verify that they are not.
They have rounds with primers and bullets but no powder for close up shots. So even checking isn’t 100%. That’s why the armorer is the one who fucked up. Now maybe Baldwin may have played a role by cutting corners in production, but he’s officially off the hook for that now so…
I mean if Rittenhouse can drive over state lines to counter a protest ,kill 3 people, claim self defense, and be found innocent, than certainly a man cutting corners by trying to save money on a film he’s producing, staring in, and directing certainly can have his case dismissed with prejudice because of willful mishandling of evidence by the police and gross misconduct of the prosecutor.
If you bring a case against someone in bad faith, you shouldn’t be able to prosecute it again when you get caught. Otherwise there’s no consequence for the state when they don’t play by the rules.
Tbh, they should get disbarred as well. If playing dirty just turns into a stroke of luck for the accused and nothing more, it doesn’t really do much to stop the prosecution from doing it again. They get paid to play dirty and just move on to the next one when caught.
Exactly where I was going with my question. There would need to be steep penalties for being caught trying to undermine the process. Even if they had made an honest mistake, I feel the individuals holding the power of a prosecutor should be expected to held to a higher standard, and therefore higher consequence.
The state government’s own prosecutor, and perhaps even law enforcement, have intentionally withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense. How do you perceive that the right move is to give them another chance to frame the defendant? Why would they want to hide evidence if they had a solid case? We’re literally talking about a conspiracy here, one tied to law enforcement and the state government. How do you figure that a fair trial can be held at this point?
The prosecutor may very well be disbarred, here, and I would not be at all surprised if this withholding of evidence causes the armorer’s case to be overturned, as the evidence was relevant to (and withheld from) that case, while it was actively being tried. There will likely be civil lawsuits brought against the state over this.
I am not a lawyer, and neither are you from what I can tell, so maybe it would be best to read what actual lawyers have to say about the matter before sharing your opinions. That’s what I did. Highly recommend.
Yes, I’m very much in favor of those protections if acquitted. Usually, dismissal with prejudice is for whatever the “vexatious litigant” equivalent is for public criminal prosecution. Where there is misconduct on behalf of the prosecutor, the case should be retried fairly.
I was slightly torn on this one from a technicality standpoint, but not about the simple logic of it all. Disclaimer: It’s been a while since I read all the details on this case.
For some reason, the armorer somehow allowed live cartridges on set and that is super bad. However, anyone that holds any kind of weapon should treat it like a weapon, especially if it is not marked as a prop or isn’t visibly disabled.
It was a failure of the top two gun safety rules: Always treat a gun as if it is loaded, and, never point a weapon at anything you do not intend to kill.
The death of Brandon Lee years ago should have underscored how even prop guns can kill.
Edit: Are there points that are incorrect here? Weapon safety is super important…
never point a weapon at anything you do not intend to kill.
It’s a bit unclear to me why he did that, but if he was practicing something he had to do in the movie, then that’s an exception. The claim is he pointed at the camera, which is plausible, but cameras have operators. This is why there is an armorer role and no live ammo can be on set.
If he was goofing around, that’s completely different, but haven’t seen sufficient clarification
Yeah. From the summary I heard on the radio yesterday, it sounded like there was evidence of him trying to be safe with it, like you mentioned the camera operator, there was a clip of him asking the operator to move to the other side of the camera so he wasn’t aiming at them. And they said it fired when he was decocking it and the hammer fell, not because he pulled the trigger.
But there’s also a bunch of complications due to stuff like the armorer being replaced and the new one apparently being unqualified, and for that reason he should bear responsibility as the producer having control over that decision.
He clearly bears some responsibility as Producer, although that probably extends to other producers and the Director. But as the person who was holding the weapon, there is personal responsibility as well, and it’s not clear how much
The only exception to point a gun at somebody is to protect life. If you can’t film a shot without pointing a real gun at someone, that shot doesn’t need to be made.
Well you better let hollywood know they cant use guns anymore in movies or TV shows. Very real guns are used non stop in the entertainment industry, and they all point at somebody.
Thr truth of the matter here is that real weapons look real, so they will always be used. Hollywood has impressive safeguards. This movie has a real fuck up armorer who not only didn’t enforce them, but who directly undermined them. She was convicted of manslaughter for it.
Baldwin pulled the trigger, but based on testimony he was asking people to move aside and was trying to be safe with the weapon, even though he thought the armorer had already made it safe. That points to an honest attempt to treat the weapon correctly, even if it all went bad.
One thing: they try not to actually point the guns at people. If the shot is framed so that you can only see one person, there’s probably no person out of frame. If it’s a long shot with two people, they’re probably aiming a bit to the side so that it still looks right on camera. In a big war scene, they’re aiming between and over the people.
So the claim m is pointing the gun at the camera. Also the operator was asked to move so the gun wouldn’t be pointing at them. Sounds reasonable to that point, then it gets murkier
So many movies have handled this. Aside from rare accidents (which are tragic), the industry has decided professional supervision removes the rule regarding pointing and killing
And there's the added layer of Baldwin being the producer, and so he's the guy who hired the crappy armorer in the first place.
But ultimately none of that matters now. The reason this case was dismissed is not because of any of those questions of who's responsible for what on the set, it was dismissed because the police and the prosecutors withheld evidence from the defense.
You do not withhold evidence from the defense in a criminal trial, that's a huge no-no.
I don’t think his criminal liability is any different between him being a producer or an actor. He was criminally charged for manslaughter because he was the one who pointed the gun and pulled the trigger. It had nothing to do with his title or role in the movie’s production.
Civil liability is an entirely different thing. I would argue his civil liability as the producer is probably greater than it is as the actor. An actor would in theory have very little to do with the overall production and the handling of firearms on the set. The producer on the other hand could easily be proven as responsible for systemic failures in basic safety protocols.
They are when you're holding an actual trial. You can't try both criminal and civil charges simultaneously, the two processes are quite different from each other.