Grand jury in New Mexico charged the actor for a shooting on Rust set that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins
Actor Alec Baldwin is facing a new involuntary manslaughter charge over the 2021 fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the movie Rust.
A Santa Fe, New Mexico, grand jury indicted Baldwin on Friday, months after prosecutors had dismissed the same criminal charge against him.
During an October 2021 rehearsal on the set of Rust, a western drama, Baldwin was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins when it went off, fatally striking her and wounding Joel Souza, the film’s director.
Baldwin, a co-producer and star of the film, has said he did not pull the trigger, but pulled back the hammer of the gun before it fired.
Last April, special prosecutors dismissed the involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin, saying the firearm might have been modified prior to the shooting and malfunctioned and that forensic analysis was warranted. But in August, prosecutors said they were considering re-filing the charges after a new analysis of the weapon was completed.
He is the producer.
Hi hired her. He tolerated crew using real bullets on set for playing target practice during down time.
The boss created unsafe conditions, and killed his employee through negligence.
I find that to be a pretty big leap. When she took the role of armorer she assumed all responsibility on set to ensure the safety of the crew, which was the entire point in Baldwin hiring someone to that position in the first place. Her gross negligence if not outright fraud is a result of her own actions and nobody else.
At most I’d give 20% responsibility to Baldwin for not examining her background more closely.
I would still say Baldwin is at fault since he wasn’t doing what he could to ensure safety on the set with real guns and live ammunition. The armorer fucked up 100% for sure, but they shouldn’t be the first and last line for following safety policies and SOPs - anybody in a leadership or managerial role should also be enforcing it.
I find it highly unlikely that a film producer is going around checking weapon props on the vast, vast majority of Hollywood sets. I would be shocked if that ever happens.
People were literally walking off set before the shooting happened because of this exact safety issue. Baldwin knew about the safety issue. He ignored it.
He’s negligent for not firing the negligent armorer the moment he undoubtedly heard about there being live ammo on set.
He doesn’t need to check them, but he can certainly go “hey, make sure we’re following safety protocols!” so others can actually do that work - or at least, Baldwin can cover himself by saying he was trying to follow safety protocol.
You say it’s the armorer’s fault (which it is), but Baldwin still could’ve done more to ensure safety on his end without checking every weapon prop like you said. Ask yourself: if the people in charge don’t follow policy and procedure, do you think the people below them would?
What policy/procedure did Baldwin not follow exactly?
I would hate to work under you. I hope you’re not in charge of anything OSHA related.
Ok. I’d hate to have employees who need convenient scapegoats to deflect their basic job responsibilities for which they were, you know, hired to perform.
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I completely agree with you that technically the armorer is at fault traditionally in these types of situations and a jury may in fact find that to be true in the eyes of the law eventually, but I find it interesting that in this case the armorer was a younger attractive female on a rough n tumble set and I can only assume there was pressure on her from the other people there shooting if not Baldwin himself to go shooting. Hell she may not have even known the guns were used but that’s not really an excuse.
What is a meditating factor is what Baldwin said, told her and ordered her to do. Remember he’s her boss. I’m assuming there’s evidence he told her to do blah. If so imo he deserves more than 20%.
The way I see it, if your responsibility is the safety of firearms and someone tells you to violate that responsibility, that reflects a lot on you and you’re not cut for the job. If there is a contradiction between what the boss tells you and that which you’re held liable for, you better choose wisely. You’re hired for this role specifically when death is on the line no less.
Why do you think the grand jury, which certainly has seen more evidence than you, felt differently?
The Grand Jury is subject to a narrow perspective of evidence framed solely by the Prosecutors. The bar is pretty low.
If Grand Juries were fullproof, why even proceed to a trial…?
And it’s quite possible I’m missing something, sure. I don’t really have a horse in this race either way.
A grand jury found him guilty! I guess that settles it!
Maybe you shouldn’t comment on things that you don’t know the first thing about
A grand jury will in a ham sandwich
Baldwin was one of 10 producers and was not the hiring director. He, in fact, hire her.
I’ve heard that there were live fire practices on set, but could never back that up.
What I did find the last time this came up was a write-up about how there were reloads intermixed with the dummy rounds, re-loads that had been used on a completely different film shoot, where the actors of that film were walked tough some target practice with live rounds, so that they would better understand how a gun firing live rounds would kick.
Then a coffee can full of mixed live and dummy rounds ended up kicking around for a couple of years before being sent out to the Rust filming location, and the armorer didn’t know how to check the bullets. Or didn’t know that she had to. She was told that everything sent was a dummy round.
There were a bunch of live rounds found mixed into props, including Baldwin’s ammo belt.
All of them looked like the standard dummy round.
real bullets. . .
playing . . .
That’s fucked up.
I find it very hard to understand the attitudes some people have towards firearms.