Alec Baldwin Fatally Shoots Crew Member With Prop Firearm, Authorities Say

[blastula]

Not sure if this was mentioned, that a third person was charged and they pled guilty: assistant director David Halls, the one who handed the gun to Baldwin.

'Rust' first assistant director David Halls sentenced in deadly on-set shooting

"Rust" first assistant director David Halls has been sentenced to six months unsupervised probation in connection with the fatal on-set shooting.

abcnews.go.com

The prosecution had also offered a plea deal to Baldwin but later withdrew it, which they probably regret doing now.

 

[thebeave]

Seems that only person with brains and integrity on the prosecution side is the one who abruptly resigned.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The whole thing is awful. The poor woman who lost her life working for this shoddy production on a straight to video movie. I feel somebody needs to face consequences for this but I'm not sure who to blame and I'm sure there is more than one person has failed in their duties and responsibilities for safety on set that led to this terrible incident.

The person who is most responsible for this, the armorer, had her day in court and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Personally, I think she should have got more. She should never have had this job in the first place. As much as I don't care for Alec Baldwin, I don't think he should have been held responsible as an actor for the death of HH. Perhaps as a producer, though, as IIRC, ensuring set safety was part of his responsibilities.

Yes, as far as I know, only the armorer has faced any significant consequences. But as I say, she cannot be the only one who bears some responsibility for the death of Halyna Hutchins. Her death has to be down to a chain of events, who hired her for example. The production company should have some liability in this too. The armorer seems to have taken the fall so far.

Well yea. The armorer is the one responsible for loading a live round into a gun that was to be used in the making of a movie. It's just about the dumbest thing that I've ever heard of. I mean honestly, you want to hold someone responsible for not telling the armorer that it's not a good idea to load a live round into weapon?

I don't think she loaded a live round. Rather, she failed to note that a live round had been loaded by people plinking. Her job was to check weapons, she failed to do so.

 

[Tigers!]

Do we know how a live round got onto the set in the first place?
Do people carry them around in their pockets?
......
Oh wait. This the USA. Of course people carry them around in their pockets in case they need a spare one.


Does anyone have pictures(s) of what the prop (dummy) round looks like as compared to a live round?

 

[bilby]

Do we know how a live round got onto the set in the first place?
Do people carry them around in their pockets?
......
Oh wait. This the USA. Of course people carry them around in their pockets in case they need a spare one.


Does anyone have pictures(s) of what the prop (dummy) round looks like as compared to a live round?

I know it was a couple of months ago, but you only needed to look back a couple of pages in this thread:

One article I read a while back claimed the company that supplied the blank rounds to the film accidentally included some live rounds in with the mix, but I find that hard to believe.

Not only is that very hard to believe, but in the unlikely event that it occurred, it would be trivially easy to spot; Blank rounds don't look much like live ones, and any armorer who can't spot the difference at a glance shouldn't be working with guns at all.

Live ammunition has a bullet in the end of the shell:
View attachment 45602

Blank ammo doesn't include a bullet, so the end of the brass shell is typically crimped to prevent the propellant from spilling out:
View attachment 45603
You can get blank rifle rounds that include a "fake bullet" that disintegrates in the barrel when fired, but even these don't look much like live rounds, and I have never seen such a thing in a handgun blank (the barrel is too short, and wouldn't allow enough time for the "bullet" to fully fragment).

So it looks like dummy ammo has a bullet with no charge or primer. The primer end being dimpled would be the telltale. The bullet necessary for appearance on film.

View attachment 45606

So it looks like dummy ammo has a bullet with no charge or primer. The primer end being dimpled would be the telltale. The bullet necessary for appearance on film.

View attachment 45606

Yeah, dummy ammo looks like live ammo until you glance at the base of the shell. I can't see that there would be much call to load dummy ammo into a gun for a movie shoot though, except perhaps in a close-up cut-away. Dummy ammo is for looking realistic in scenes when it isn't in a gun.

It only exists because blank ammo doesn't look anything like live ammo.

 

[EricH]

But that appears to be not the case here, as it was reported that the crew was doing some target practice earlier with live rounds.

I think that happened during the shooting of another show called 1883. Some of the actors on the 1883 production were given a lesson in shooting the weapons that they were shown using on the show. The lesson was provided at a range that is separate from the set of the show, and Hannah Gutierrez, the armorer on the Rust set, was not involved in the lesson (but apparently her father was). Also, none of the guns used during the lesson on the range came from the 1883 set. The testimony provided at the first trial for Hannah Gutierrez appeared to indicate that the live rounds found on the Rust set (and used in the fatal shooting on set) were provided by Hannah's father to Hannah, not by PDQ Props which provided a bulk of the props used on the Rust set.