Alec Baldwin shoots and kills cinematographer.

Gutierrez-Reed's last day as the production's designated armorer was October 17. On October 21, the day of the incident, she had no armorer responsibilities and was contracted solely as a props assistant

Pretty interesting read. Lot of detail. As usual, the accountants are to blame. The budget allocated 8 days of armorer rate for Gutierrez-Reed. The rest of her time was budgeted at a lower rate as a props assistant. The 8 days of armorer budget ran out on the 17th. However, in reality she continued to do both duties. She was told in writing to "focus less on Armorer tasks and spend more time assisting the Props Department."

The report contained more detail on the identification of dummy rounds:

Live rounds may be distinguishable from dummy rounds by either a small hole in the brass cartridge (indicating that there is no powder), by a missing or dimpled primer at the bottom of the cartridge, or by shaking the round and hearing the distinct clatter of a BB within. Unless a round is removed from a storage box or firearm and inspected, it can’t be verified as a dummy round.
 
Good find. I attached safety bulletin 1, pages 13-16, which pertains to firearms and blanks.

Item #1 acknowledges that pointing guns at people is sometimes required to make a movie, and this is not forbidden by the safety rules.

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Also note the bulletin establishes 2 formal roles, the Property Master and the Weapon's Handler. I believe those correspond to the Asst Director and Armorer on Rust. The bulletin makes it clear the Property Master is to personally load or supervise the loading of weapons.

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This was rehearsal. Not sure that qualifies as "on camera."
 
As usual, the accountants are to blame. The budget allocated 8 days of armorer rate for Gutierrez-Reed. The rest of her time was budgeted at a lower rate as a props assistant.
The accountants can only spend the money the producers give them.
 
Pretty interesting read. Lot of detail. As usual, the accountants are to blame. The budget allocated 8 days of armorer rate for Gutierrez-Reed. The rest of her time was budgeted at a lower rate as a props assistant. The 8 days of armorer budget ran out on the 17th. However, in reality she continued to do both duties. She was told in writing to "focus less on Armorer tasks and spend more time assisting the Props Department."

The report contained more detail on the identification of dummy rounds:
I thought so. She was told to focus less on the armory. She told them armor days are up and if there's gun fire need to talk to the producers.

The whole production was an absolute mess. To which I blame the producers.

Armorer isn't blameless, but to this point she's been the scapegoat. She should have walked away when she was told she's spending too much time as an armorer and not enough with props. If she's not getting paid to be an armorer on the 21st, then she shouldn't be liable for something related to a job she wasn't getting paid for.
 
You cannot make a gun movie without pointing guns at people.
That's why to make Star Trek they invented the warp drive, made a giant spaceship and travelled across several galaxies meeting all kinds of new civilizations along the way. Just ask Captain Kirk.
 
According to the OSHA report, pointing guns at the camera was a fairly regular occurrence. Maybe that's some kind of western movie trope, like guys walking away from explosions.
explosion.PNG
 
According to the OSHA report, pointing guns at the camera was a fairly regular occurrence. Maybe that's some kind of western movie trope, like guys walking away from explosions.
LOL, google "movie pointing gun at camera." It's a thing.

gun8.PNGgun7.PNGgun6.PNGgun5.PNGgun4.PNGgun3.PNG
 
This seems simple to me. If you have what you know is an actual firearm in your hand and you kill someone with it, it's your fault. If you can't figure out how to verify that won't happen, then don't do that. Very simple. He pointed a gun a someone, pulled the trigger, and killed them. To me the only questions are a) if it was intentional, and b) if not intentional, how reckless was it? Being both the producer, and the actual killer, I would think the reckless level is high enough to question if it was intentional, just based on that. Or, along the lines that the disregard was so high that there was no thought or care as to the safety of the other person at all.

Anyway, seems to me that if there's an upside to this terrible incident, it's the hope that insurance companies, and maybe the industry, won't allow actual firearms on movie sets anymore. Doesn't seem to me that they need them. 'Alien' was made without any actual aliens, most of the Star Wars movies were made without actual spaceships, etc.
 
I can’t prove it, but I heard a rumor that Star Wars didn’t even use real light sabers.
They DID use real guns. That’s a gen-u-wine Lewis Gun this storm trooper is carrying….
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Though, admittedly, they didn’t load it.

And Han Solo carries a broomhandle Mauser….

Ron Wanttaja
 
Pretty interesting read. Lot of detail. As usual, the accountants are to blame. The budget allocated 8 days of armorer rate for Gutierrez-Reed. The rest of her time was budgeted at a lower rate as a props assistant. The 8 days of armorer budget ran out on the 17th. However, in reality she continued to do both duties. She was told in writing to "focus less on Armorer tasks and spend more time assisting the Props Department."

The report contained more detail on the identification of dummy rounds:
I found it interesting that they mentioned "a missing or dimpled primer at the bottom of the cartridge" as if live rounds can't have dimpled primers. You'll get dimpled primers for any ammo used in a weapon with a free-floating firing pin (read: AR15/AR10, AK47, etc.). It's not enough of a primer strike to set off the round (unless you get repeated strikes on a soft primer), but the existence of a dimple on the primer doesn't mean it isn't live.
 
I found it interesting that they mentioned "a missing or dimpled primer at the bottom of the cartridge" as if live rounds can't have dimpled primers. You'll get dimpled primers for any ammo used in a weapon with a free-floating firing pin (read: AR15/AR10, AK47, etc.). It's not enough of a primer strike to set off the round (unless you get repeated strikes on a soft primer), but the existence of a dimple on the primer doesn't mean it isn't live.

Agreed. Could be mistranslation of facts by the OSHA investigator, who presumably was not a firearms expert. Or could be poor industry standardization of protocols. But clearly the method of identifying live rounds vs dummies was not foolproof. When something with fatal consequences is not foolproof, it is only a matter of time before a fool finds the flaw.

I think the main systemic failure was the selection of the armorer. She had no real world weapons experience other than handling props. No military or LEO experience. Further, she was too young and inexperienced to push back effectively on bad management decisions. Finally, she was in possession of illegal drugs on set, a clear indication of irresponsibility and poor judgement. Hollywood has different morals than the rest of us, but that is a multibillion dollar industry. Tolerating drug usage by safety critical personnel is absolutely insane.

Can you imagine if there was an airliner crash, and the captain was found to have handed someone a bag of cocaine to hide afterwards?
 
Anyway, seems to me that if there's an upside to this terrible incident, it's the hope that insurance companies, and maybe the industry, won't allow actual firearms on movie sets anymore. Doesn't seem to me that they need them.
I would guess that this is extremely unlikely. When I googled the other day I could only find three on set gun deaths. One in which the actor killed himself, one where the barrel had failed to have been cleared and now Rust. During the same period there were 40 other on set deaths.
 
I think the main systemic failure was the selection of the armorer. She had no real world weapons experience other than handling props. No military or LEO experience. Further, she was too young and inexperienced to push back effectively on bad management decisions. Finally, she was in possession of illegal drugs on set, a clear indication of irresponsibility and poor judgement. Hollywood has different morals than the rest of us, but that is a multibillion dollar industry. Tolerating drug usage by safety critical personnel is absolutely insane.

Personally, I feel the failure was one step further back: the refusal to fund a better armorer. Ms. Reed was the armorer they chose to afford. They interviewed others that turned them down when they saw the lackluster budget.
 
I wonder how different this thread would have been had the header read, "Cinematographer shoots and kills Alec Baldwin." Thirty-five pages? Doubtful....
 
They DID use real guns. That’s a gen-u-wine Lewis Gun this storm trooper is carrying….
View attachment 127985
Though, admittedly, they didn’t load it.

And Han Solo carries a broomhandle Mauser….

Ron Wanttaja
Other than that, the safest place to be on a Star Wars set apparently was wherever the storm troopers were supposed to be aiming. ;)
 
Interesting longer transcript of the Judge's comments from the video above, for those who didn't watch it.

Red paragraph is where the Judge lets loose.


"First of all, thank you for your presentations. Thank the friends and family of Halyna for presenting their memories and their losses of Halyna.
There are really three choices for sentencing before me. What the defence wants is a conditional discharge. This means straight probation unless Miss Gutierrez-Reed comes back on a probation violation. She won't have a felony conviction on her record, so she can continue to possess firearms. Again, unless she comes back on a probation violation, and receives the imposition of the probated sentence. The second one has not been offered by counsel but I've certainly thought of it, and it's to continue her in the Santa Fe County Detention Centre. That would be for 12 months, it's all she's allowed to stay at the detention centre, and then put her on probation for the rest of the time - she's facing 18 months, she's got pre-sentence confinement for about a month or so. In this scenario, she won't experience prison, she will be a convicted felon, she cannot carry a firearm under federal law and for a specific time under New Mexico law. And then there's prison, and the state has proposed at 85% of the time sentenced to incarceration based on the serious violent offence statute.
For all the fanfare and [unintelligible] and fingerpointing that has been going on for over two years, we were able to seat a jury of her peers who confirmed that they could listen to the evidence perceived in court and determine the facts and apply the law. They found Miss Gutierrez guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
What were some of the poignant facts that came out during the trial? In her police interviews, she proudly owned her position as armourer.
On October 1st 2021, chaos [unintelligble] after the film crew walked off. Miss Hutchins and others were trying to rig, if you will, how they were going to keep filming. And what was the defendant doing while waiting? She was loading Alec Baldwin's gun. Did she have enough time to load the weapon safely? Plenty. Did she load the weapon? Yes - with dummies and a live round. Did she check what she was loading? No. Why? Well in her own words, most recently in her jail house calls, she "didn't need to be shaking the dummies all the time". Did she check after that? No. And while you've heard her concerns about how she'll never work again as an armourer leading up to the trial, have her concerns changed? No, here's what she says: this whole thing has been a character attack on her. Just recently, in her allocution, "I'm not a monster". They talk about how much of - on the phone, she and another are talking about how much of Hannah's life they could take up, and that this is messing up her modelling career. This is while she is incarcerated, waiting for a sentence. And what does she say about the death of Halyna? Hannah is dismissive of the judge talking about someone dying as a result of her actions. Hannah says she's looking at 13 months, which is ridiculous over what happened. Hannah says that people have accidents and people die, it's an unfortunate part of life, but it doesn't mean she should be in jail.
A conditional discharge is not appropriate. And the second option of leaving you in the detention centre would be giving you a pass you do not deserve. I did not hear you take accountability in your allocution. You said you were sorry. You were sorry, but not you were sorry for what you did. You were sorry for, and hope they can find peace. It was your attorney that had to tell the court you were remorseful. The word remorse? A deep regret coming from a sense of guilt for past wrongs. That's not you.
You are hereby sentenced as follows, stand: I am sentencing you to 18 months of incarceration at a New Mexico Women's Correctional Facility. I find that what you did constitutes a serious violent offence, it was committed in a physically violent manner, a fatal gunshot done with your recklessness in the face of knowledge that your acts were reasonably likely to result in serious harm. You were the armourer, the one that stood between a safe weapon and a weapon that could kill someone. You alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon. But for you, Miss Hutchins would be alive, a husband would have his partner and a little boy would have his mother. Please take her."
Yeah, the lack of remorse really sunk any plea for leniency for her. In the video I watched, it was pointed out that there are warnings that jailhouse phones are NOT private.
 
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Should be? I think he should be found innocent.
Maybe a bit pedantic, but no one is ever “found innocent”. The verdict is “not guilty”, which means the state did not meet the burden of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt”. Which does not mean the person is innocent of committing the crime.
 
Maybe a bit pedantic, but no one is ever “found innocent”. The verdict is “not guilty”, which means the state did not meet the burden of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt”. Which does not mean the person is innocent of committing the crime.
I believe our system also defines someone as innocent until and unless they are found guilty.
 
Dummy rounds:
I've seen a number of movies and shows where the primers were missing from the cases. Bullets were in place so in a revolver you could see them in the chamber. I've seen magazines being loaded with rounds missing primers. Why are primerless rounds not standard operating procedure on set?
 
That was actually a point of contention in the armorer trial. This is a picture of an ammo tray recovered on set. The bullet with the silver colored primer is a live round. The bullets with brass colored primers are dummies. The armorer took a selfie of herself with this tray of ammo in her lap. It was the prosecution's main evidence that she had definitively handled the live rounds. The defense responded that “you cannot tell a live round from a dummy by a picture.”

I agree, I don't know what the hell they were looking for by spinning the cylinder. But the AD testified that was the procedure, in addition to the armorer shaking each round to check the rattle before loading.

But that is why having the actor check the gun is useless. Dummy rounds have to be checked by a trained expert to properly identify them. Baldwin the actor knows less than we do about dummy rounds. That is why Baldwin the producer hired an armorer to inspect the rounds, and appointed the assistant director as safety coordinator to supervise the armorer. Once the rounds are checked by the expert and loaded into the gun, as verified by the AD, the actors do not mess with them.

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It took me a while to find this, but here's the opening statement of the defense:


From 9:35 through 9:42, he explains that there were multiple dummy rounds that also had silver primers. I started the video at 8:58 because that's where he started talking about primer color, but it's very long winded.

(I'm still looking for the witness testimony for this evidence.)
 
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Pretty interesting read. Lot of detail. As usual, the accountants are to blame. The budget allocated 8 days of armorer rate for Gutierrez-Reed. The rest of her time was budgeted at a lower rate as a props assistant. The 8 days of armorer budget ran out on the 17th. However, in reality she continued to do both duties. She was told in writing to "focus less on Armorer tasks and spend more time assisting the Props Department."
That certainly sounds incriminating for whoever made that decision.
 
Are you sure?
Do you have contrary information?

Baldwin's grand jury indictment is public record. There is nothing about his management role in the elements of the charge. It is all about his physical actions, and specifically about the pulling of the trigger.
 
Take a plea bargain and talk sh¡t about it the second it's final.
Baldwin already did that. That's why the plea bargain offer was revoked and he faces trial. The government found out he planned a PR campaign to minimize the impact to his reputation. He also reportedly was planning to sue the prosecutors.
 
Do you have contrary information?

Baldwin's grand jury indictment is public record. There is nothing about his management role in the elements of the charge. It is all about his physical actions, and specifically about the pulling of the trigger.
I guess you are sure then. I'm no lawyer, I'm certainly not sure.
 
I guess you are sure then. I'm no lawyer, I'm certainly not sure.
Here are the instructions to the grand jury for Baldwin's second indictment:

“it must find probable cause as to each of the following elements: (1) “The target discharged a firearm during the production of the movie without first verifying the firearm contained no live ammunition and while the firearm was pointed in the direction of another,” (2) “the target should have known the danger involved from the target’s actions,” (3) “the target acted with a willful disregard for the safety of others,” and (4) “the target’s act caused the death of Halyna Hutchins.”

The first indictment did include charges pertaining to Baldwin's role as producer, but that indictment was withdrawn due to numerous legal issues.
 
One thing I just read, in the NYT of all places: the trigger pull was 2 pounds. That is insane.
 
One thing I just read, in the NYT of all places: the trigger pull was 2 pounds. That is insane.

For that application, yes. Some target pistols, like for long range silouhette shooting, are sometimes set that light. But a revolver for a movie? Yeah, nutty.
 
One thing I just read, in the NYT of all places: the trigger pull was 2 pounds. That is insane.

Light, yes. But maybe not insane? It's a single-action only. Those frequently have light triggers. I think 1911s can be found as low as 3 lbs? Stock-ish. I'm not sure what poundage is normal on SAA reproductions.
 
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