One civil trial was settled. The wrongful death one. There’s another negligence lawsuit filed by Hutchins’ family. Gloria Allred is representing them. She was in the courtroom yesterday. She did not look happy.
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Criminal negligence. Or depraved indifference. Either of which is what Baldwin should have been charged with, rather than manslaughter.
Movie sets have nonfunctional dummy bullets that are basically indistinguishable from live ammo. Most prop guns are REAL GUNS because they fire blanks, which are essentially every functional part of a “bullet” except the bullet itself. Every single one of these items is meticulously prepared, checked, and certified by the armorer to ensure their safe usage.
Bringing live ammo into that environment, using prop guns for target practice between filming, that’s not just stupid and negligent, that’s “keeping your drain cleaner in a soda bottle in the fridge” level stupid. It’s “leaving an open box of razor blades next to the Chuck E Cheese ball pit” level stupid. Gutierrez needs to never be allowed access to firearms again.
And Baldwin needs to answer for his role as her boss, and the one ultimately responsible for her actions on set. He didn’t commit manslaughter, but he should have faced charges for his mismanagement endangering everyone on set.
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And what crime would that be? Criminal negligence and depraved indifference aren’t crimes. They’re states of mind required for certain crimes. Criminal negligence, by the way, was the state of mind required for the involuntary manslaughter he was charged with. Depraved indifference would be the state of mind for either 2nd or 3rd degree murder, depending on the state.
What you are describing (negligence in his role as producer) is a tort. And there is a pending lawsuit arguing that very thing. But it’s not a crime. Maybe it should be, but it’s not. There are also multiple producers on that film, and the lawsuit encompasses all of them, something the criminal charges obviously did not. If you’re going to charge someone with a crime in their capacity as producer, I’m not sure why you’d single out Baldwin. He was one of many, and he wasn’t even an executive producer.
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This is the important part - the defense should have been the ones to make that decision.
Prosecutors argued the ammunition was not connected to the case and did not match bullets found on the Rust set.The judge ruled, however, that they should have been shared with Mr Baldwin’s defence team regardless.
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It’s wrong to label Baldwin “the producer.” A producer, certainly. The producers of Rust are Alec Baldwin, Matt DelPiano, Ryan Donnell Smith, Anjul Nigam, Ryan Winterstern, Nathan Klingher, and Grant Hill.
You get to be a producer by providing money, your own participation (in Baldwin’s case), or management. In return, you get partial ownership and a cut of the take. There were producers who made the decisions to cut the budget, fire the AD and hire an AD whose whole schtick is to do things cheaply and in a hurry. That producer and that AD should have been prosecuted, but I speculate the prosecutors were (a) looking for a higher-profile case to polish their own apple and (b) not alienate other production companies from working in their area. Prosecuting Baldwin hit that sweet spot.
And it’s not the actor’s job to perform any checks whatsoever. There’s a whole crew for that. If the crew had done its job, it should have been like holding a water pistol.
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I’m sure Brandon Lee is happy that he didn’t have to take any precautions and that guns on set are like a water pistol.
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Nobody is happy at the outcome, but the fault lies with the chain of command from the producer who made the decision to hire the cheaper AD, to the AD they hired, to the lazy armorer. And it stops there. The actors job is to say their lines and hit their marks, not check for safety on the set.
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Exactly. My speculation is they singled out Baldwin because it’s high profile, and they avoided the others because they don’t want to alienate film production from their state. In other words, entirely corrupt reasons.
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But it is the actor’s job to only accept a firearm from an armorer, and to not pull the trigger if it’s pointing in an unsafe direction.
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Did he not accept it from the armorer? The reason the armorer was convicted is she was sloppy. As for pointing it in an unsafe direction, what about all those gunfight scenes where people fire guns at other people. I might be missing something, sure.
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Missing something? What, you mean like camera angles merely making it look like a gun is directly firing at another actor? Or not pointing anything directly at anybody at a range of about 2 feet? (FWIW, Jon-Erik Hexum accidentally killed himself with a blank. Point-blank range.)
Me, I feel like I missed something in not getting a narrative from a full trial for something so horrific.
Maybe not but it is the actor’s job to handle the weapon safely. According to the SAG-AFTRA safety guidelines, “Treat all weapons as though they are loaded and/or ready to use. Do not play with weapons and never point one at anyone, including yourself. Follow the directions of the Property Master and/or weapons handler regarding all weapons”.
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I’ll go one step further: I don’t know why there should be any functional weapons on a movie or TV set, let alone live ammo. Sure, use a real gun if you want, but key mechanisms (like a firing pin or parts of the trigger assembly) should be removed. In this day and age, even mundane things are going to have some special effects added, and the audio is always going to be “enhanced” because movie guns have to sound like artillery for “excitement.” (Always amused me since real pistols are already REALLY loud, but whatever.) There’s absolutely no reason for anyone to ever be pointing a functional weapon at anybody.
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In every other movie set they don’t. There was a GROSS violation of established safety protocols.
Hollywood uses a two fold safety protocol that includes the props, and the handling by the actors. Something like this requires tragic failures on both levels. It’s something I’d expect from some people making a movie in the woods with shoestring budget and a small crew. Not from a movie with a budget and a well known actor.
Baldwin was acting like a dick, by all accounts, including waving the gun around, ignoring the safety discussions, and aiming the god damn gun at people.
I’m so sick of rich white men getting off for their shitty behavior on fucking technicalities.
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