Alec Baldwin charged for shooting;
Alec Baldwin charged for shooting;
Alec Baldwin charged for shooting;
Wait he was handed live gun, which was supposed to fire blanks and yet it's him getting charged and not the propmaster. what the fuck? what am I missing?
It's never as simple as you think.
Analysis of the events and circumstances, and commentary by a lawyer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXmAeMQCvZQ
He says that Baldwin is unlikely charged for firing the gun but more likely for being a producer who failed to ensure that the set is safe.
The thing is that he right now is being charged for firing the gun not for falling as a producer, that's why it seems pretty weird like they are really trying to sack him for some reason.
I love me some Legal Eagle, but this video is 2 years old and at the beginning he says they don't have the full facts yet and everything is speculative since they don't know what happened. I'm wondering if there's anything more recent with more info about what actually happened.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
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So, there is a part where he's an executive producer and may have ignored warnings regarding safety.
According to a Wikipedia article on the incident it was the armorer that had previous experience with accidental discharges of firearms and I guess it's the mere point of their presence during filming to make sure all guns are handled safely. Their job was to hand a safe gun to the actor, they didn't do it and a person died. I don't fucking see one reason to charge the actor, regardless of whether they happen to be a producer or not, and not charge the person actually responsible for the accident.
Let the legal system do its thing. The prosecutor will still have to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt of the crime they allege he committed.
You're hopefully missing someone on set, unlike Baldwin
From my own standpoint I can understand how a certain amount of responsibility lies on him too. If I were handed something that looks like a gun or a knife, I would probably check to make sure it isn't a real gun myself.
Especially in the US, where tragic accidental gun-related deaths and injuries happen every day.
Your argument stops being valid the moment you said probably
If you hired a professional armorer to handle guns safely and then have had assistant producer check it and confirm the gun is safe then I imagine you would have assumed it actually is.
The armorer trial was pushed back to Feb 21st of this year.
And even though it's a prop, it should still be handled as if it was loaded at all time, not point it at anyone unless necessary, etc.
It may not entirely be his fault, but he was still careless.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_shooting_incident
The scene involved Baldwin's character removing a gun from its holster and pointing it toward the camera. The trio behind the monitor were two feet (0.6 m) from the muzzle of the firearm and none of them were wearing protective gear such as noise-canceling headphones or safety goggles.
The trio behind the monitor began repositioning the camera to remove a shadow, and Baldwin began explaining to the crew how he planned to draw the firearm. He said, "So, I guess I'm gonna take this out, pull it, and go, 'Bang!'" When he removed it from the holster, the revolver discharged a single time.
Halls was quoted by his attorney Lisa Torraco as saying that Baldwin did not pull the trigger, and that Baldwin's finger was never within the trigger guard during the incident.
This would be David Halls, the assistant director.
Yeah I don’t think anyone reasonable thinks Baldwin purposefully shot that person, it was a tragic accident that was preventable at a lot of levels and while I don’t think he would be culpable were he not producing the film and merely acting in it, the fact is he is because he was
It has to be someone's job to make sure guns on set are safe
Public scapegoat.
Edit: Alec Baldwin is a known Democrat and caricatured Donald Trump famously on SNL. This is clearly a hit job on him because of his stance.
Even if that’s true, Alec bears legal responsibility. I’m left of USA “left,” so it’s not like I am wrongfully projecting unwarranted culpability onto Alec. I’ve no problems with anything I recall him saying. I understand the emotions that may be driving Alec’s refuseal to accept legal and moral responsibility. It still doesn’t make him less responsible, legally or ethically.
The US film industry has been operating for over a hundred years, routinely works with firearms, and yet only 3 people have died in firearms accidents that whole time.
I'm saying this for all the gun safety "experts". I don't care if you're military, law enforcement, or a private gun owner, your embarrassing yourself by lecturing Hollywood on gun safety.
If they practiced proper firearm safety there wouldn't have been real bullets in a gun that's supposed to be loaded with blanks, no?
If they had practiced actually firearm safety on the movie set, the guns would have been blank guns incapable of firing live ammunition.
In fact they'd should have had no guns capable of firing live ammunition on set.
All they should have had were blank firing guns and disabled firearms (e.g. firing pin removed)
And yet. They clearly failed that day. To have that great a safety record before the failure really begs the question doesn't it?
How he can be tried for the duty of a prop person or the director who hired that person is beyond ludicrous. The man showed up to do a job. That job was not to keep the props safe. He was handed a tool and told it was ok to use. Fuck this system. Let him go about his life. I'm sure the trauma of having shot someone for real is enough to make him double-check for the rest of his life. That's enough.
Umm. No. Sorry gunna pull my union card on this one since this is my Industry and while I am not an armorer or a props person I am emeshed in their understanding of property on a set as an On set dresser.
There is a legal duty of care held by everyone who handles a prop weapon. Furthermore there is a duty of care held by Producers on a show. Baldwin was not just an actor, he was a producer on Rust which means he had hiring and firing power.
Regularly this is how prop weapon safety works.
Prop weapons are only handled by an armorer who must maintain a full supervision of the weapon. It can never be used with live ammunition.
Loading can only ever take place by the props person (non union exception) or a designated armorer who must have an up to date licence.
Any mishandling of the weapon up to this stage leaves the armourer open to criminal liability. If someone steps in to this process at this stage they might take the lions share of liability. If an actor or someone who is not the props person charged with care of the weapon grabs it for instance without a hand off.
During the hand off of the weapon to an actor the props person does a last physical check of all the rounds in the weapon in sight of the actor. IF an actor accepts a weapon without doing this check then they are considered criminally negligent for any harm done with the weapon that would have been reasonably negated by this step. If the actor uses the weapon in a way that is unsafe after this check all liability is shoulded by the actor.
Following the weapon that killed on Rust it was used with live ammunition to shoot cans and abandoned on a cart. This makes the props person negligent by film safety practice. It was picked up by the 1st Assistant Director whom was not entitled to handle the weapon AT ALL which transfers some criminal negligence to him. The 1st AD handed the weapon to Baldwin and claimed it was a safe weapon WITHOUT performing the check. Anyone who saw this trade off on the set should have set off general alarm. But they didn't. This could have had to do with power imbalances on set. You generally do not tell a Producer that they are doing something wrong unless you are either willing to trust the producer to be reasonable or baring that, are willing to lose your job. Wrongful termination suits are nigh nonexistent in film because chasing one might blacklist you from other productions.
The 1st AD is the main safety officer on set and Baldwin as an experienced actor would have been briefed on weapon safety protocols many times before. Having the 1st AD just hand you a weapon on set EVEN one that is an inert rubber replica would be an instant firing offence for the AD. Accepting the weapon without insisting on a check leaves the liability on the actor. They might have a lesser share depending on how experienced they might be. If they were ignorant of the protocol at the time then the production team would take that share liability for not properly enforcing safety on the set.
Baldwin as a producer in the days leading up to the accident had shown signs of being negligent in other areas of production safety and the people hired into positions that were to enforce safety on set. People left the production citing the unsafe conditions in protest. He may not shoulder the full liability of criminal negligence but he ABSOLUTELY owns a chunk of it. Directors and Producers REGULARLY push the boundaries of crew safety when they think they can get away with it and the bigger the name the more likely these accidents are. Remembering WHY we have these safety protocols and the people injured or killed in the past is something that is well known in the industry. We remember those killed or permanently maimed by production negligence because there but for the grace of God go us. Everyone who has been in this industry more than a decade personally knows someone whose life was permanently impacted by a bigshot throwing their weight around because of the natural power imbalances on set. One of my Co-workers sustained a permanently debilitating brain injury last year for just this reason. You dice with some one else's death you gotta pay up when you lose.
I enjoy having my mind changed by well-written, well-reasoned posts from people who are informed. Thank you.
Lemmy needs a Best Of so this could be posted to it
Damn this should be a best of Lemmy post if we have a community for that
This is new info to me (producer). Thanks for enlightening me.
TIL that being an actor requires a law degree if you don't want to potentially end up in jail.
Your comment, if anything, proves it's the AD who's responsible
"The trio behind the monitor began repositioning the camera to remove a shadow, and Baldwin began explaining to the crew how he planned to draw the firearm. He said, "So, I guess I'm gonna take this out, pull it, and go, 'Bang!'" When he removed it from the holster, the revolver discharged a single time. Baldwin denied pulling the trigger of the gun, while ABC News described a later FBI report stating that the gun could only fire if the trigger was pulled. Halls was quoted by his attorney Lisa Torraco as saying that Baldwin did not pull the trigger, and that Baldwin's finger was never within the trigger guard during the incident. When the gun fired, the projectile traveled towards the three behind the monitor. It struck Hutchins in the chest, traveled through her body, and then hit Souza in the shoulder. Script supervisor Mamie Mitchell called 9-1-1 at 1:46 p.m. PT and emergency crews appeared three minutes later. Footage of the incident was not recorded."
"In August 2022, FBI forensic testing and investigation of the firearm determined the Pietta .45 Long Colt Single Action Army revolver could not have been fired without a trigger pull from a quarter cocked, half-cocked, or fully cocked hammer position. It was also determined that the internal components of the revolver were intact and functional which ruled out mechanical failure as a reason for an accidental discharge. Baldwin stated during a December 2021 interview for ABC News that "the trigger wasn't pulled" and "I didn't pull the trigger."
So he most likely lied about it. Maybe he was drunk or on drugs..
"On January 19, 2023, New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said she would charge Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed with two counts each of involuntary manslaughter. Halls agreed to plead guilty to negligent use of a deadly weapon, and received a suspended sentence and six months of probation."
"On June 22, 2023, Gutierrez-Reed faced a second charge of tampering with evidence, in which the special prosecutors allege that she transferred "narcotics to another person with the intent to prevent the apprehension, prosecution or conviction of herself.” They later specify from a June 29 court filing that she attempted to conceal a small bag of cocaine the night of the fatal shooting after her initial police interview. On August 4, 2023, Gutierrez-Reed waived her right to a preliminary hearing to determine whether or not the criminal charges would stand, thus allowing the trial to move forward and on August 9, she pleaded not guilty to both charges. On August 21, a New Mexico judge scheduled her trial to run February 21 through March 6, 2024."
There were drugs on set.
"On November 10, Rust gaffer Serge Svetnoy filed a lawsuit against the production for general negligence. A second lawsuit was filed on November 17 by script supervisor Mamie Mitchell, who says the script did not call for the discharging of a firearm. On January 23, 2022, Baldwin and other producers filed a memorandum that asked a California judge to dismiss the November 17, 2021 lawsuit by Mitchell. In November 2022, the court rejected a request to dismiss Mitchell's lawsuit against Baldwin and his production company"
I didn't know it is his own company as well..
I don't stand with anyone because i don't know all the facts.
Yeah but I'd still stand behind him when the gun is pointed the other way
If there's evidence, then let a jury decide. Having this take so long isn't justice to anyone
Lazy overused meme
but funny