Grand jury in New Mexico charged the actor for a shooting on Rust set that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins

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.

  • chaogomu
    2•11 months ago

    Baldwin didn’t hire the armorer, she got the job through family connections.

    She was also incompetent. She didn’t know how to test the dummy rounds to see if they were live, she didn’t know the name brand on the dummy rounds.

    • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
      2•11 months ago

      Yeah her family connection got the producers, including Baldwin, to hire her. That doesn’t mean he had no control. It means he put nepotism over safety.

      • chaogomu
        1•11 months ago

        Baldwin didn’t hire anyone. He was one of 10 producers, and was listed as being in charge of funding and script changes.

        And yes, family connections did play a big role here, the armorer is the daughter of an armorer who has worked on hundreds of films and TV shows.

        And she didn’t even know the brand name Starline Brass when questioned by police.

        That alone is a major red flag, because Starline Brass is the company that makes all the dummy rounds used on movie sets. They do not make live rounds, and yet, the round that Baldwin shot, was in a Starline Brass casing.

        The story of that has been known for 3 years now.

        https://variety.com/2021/film/news/rust-investigators-live-rounds-alec-baldwin-1235122384/

        • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
          1•11 months ago

          They do not make live rounds, and yet, the round that Baldwin shot, was in a Starline Brass casing.

          Yeah, see that? It shouldn’t even be possible. Unless you’re talking about blanks and not dummy rounds. Dummy rounds should be completely unable to fire, or be made to fire without a metal shop involved.

          And yeah. Nobody is saying she was qualified. But the fact that she wasn’t replaced after the first 2 negligent discharges on set is a leadership problem. The fact that people walked off the set because they felt unsafe and even the unqualified armorer herself raised concerns about how leadership was using the guns is a leadership problem.

          And Baldwin being that leadership, is responsible.

          • chaogomu
            0•11 months ago

            Did you read the link?

            It walks through how some Starline Bass casings were loaded with live ammo, and then ended up on a film set where there should not have been any live ammo at all.

            As to the armorer, yes, she was incompetent. That’s the whole point here. The hiring director (who was not Baldwin) took a chance on someone who had past safety issues on her only other film, because she was the daughter of a well respected armorer.

            She didn’t know how to check the bullets to see if they were dummy rounds (completely fake, but realistic looking) or live rounds.

            I know the article says blanks, but from everything I’ve found online, there weren’t even blanks on the set of Rust. Just dummy rounds, and a few live rounds that snuck in via a coffee can full of co-mingled rounds from a previous film.

            • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
              1•11 months ago

              That literally shouldn’t be possible with dummy rounds. They should be a solid block inside so it’s impossible to load with powder. If that’s true then Starline deserves to be sued into oblivion.

              I think you’re mistaking blank rounds for dummy rounds. Also a quick look at their website shows they sell brass. Brass for reloading, for live, for blanks, or for creating your own dummies.

              Again, there is no way to test a round to see if it’s a dummy short of attempting to fire it. Normal ones are a completely different color or even transparent for this reason. Obviously that doesn’t work in filming.

              As to which producer is culpable, Baldwin absolutely could have fired her and was part of violating safety protocols by ignoring complaints he could have addressed directly and immediately.