The decision had to be made today, and – in my opinion, without knowing all the specifics – prosecutors in New Mexico absurdly decided to charge Alec Baldwin. From NBC News, Baldwin has been charged with involuntary manslaughter. “Involuntary” in law means exactly what it means everywhere. He had no intention of hurting anyone.
Oscar-nominated actor Alec Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the New Mexico set of the Western movie “Rust,” prosecutors said Thursday.
The film’s armorer who was in charge of weapons on the set, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, was also charged with involuntary manslaughter, according to New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies.
“Rust” first assistant director, David Halls, has agreed to plead guilty to negligent use of a deadly weapon, according to Carmack-Altwies’ office.
Again, with the caveat that I’m not a prosecutor and don’t know every relevant fact, this is a ridiculous charge that will either be thrown out before trial or Baldwin will be acquitted at trial.
Baldwin had no reason to believe that he was holding anything but a toy. On rare occasions, real guns are used on movie sets for certain scenes (When they want dust to go up naturally as if a bullet hit it), and that is why they have “armorers” on movie sets involving firearms. Baldwin thought he was handling a toy, and he also said he didn’t pull the trigger. (The FBI refutes this, saying there is no way for the gun to discharge without pulling the trigger. It all comes down to the definition of “pull.”)
Given that no one disputes that Baldwin had no intention of hurting anyone, the only charges available involve “negligence,” which could land Baldwin in jail for up to 18 months. (Even if convicted, the court need not sentence Baldwin to any jail time.) Charging Baldwin with negligence necessarily means that he should have had reason to believe that it “was” a real gun and “was loaded.” But, the prosecutors went further and added a second count of involuntary manslaughter with a gun enhancement, which could put Baldwin in prison for five years.
Clearly, there was negligence on the set. Someone was responsible for handing Baldwin a loaded gun in a situation where it was supposed to be a toy. Those people should be charged.
Now watch the MAGAs have a party. It is a sickness. They don’t like Baldwin because he mocked Trump on SNL. They don’t care that a woman tragically died on a movie set (Baldwin certainly cares). They only care about the fact that now Baldwin will suffer from the criminal charge, even if eventually found innocent. They will take joy in his suffering, as all MAGAs do (unless it’s another MAGA, and then it’s a travesty.)
Sick.
****
[email protected], @JasonMiciak, SUBSTACK: BIDEN COULD DESTROY MCCARTHY AND HOUSE GOP TODAY
Well said, Jason. For some reason, they are making Baldwin the scapegoat.
What about the Second Amendment nuts?
If he had shot a black teenager in the streets, he would not have been charged with anything.
One other thought-perhaps there has been prodding from the victim’s family and the state’s prosecution office is feeling pressure to do something. I mean, the whole thing is pretty fucked up and there is room to spread a lot of blame on that set. Yes, maybe Baldwin will escape prosecution because the case is thrown out of court, maybe not. If the case isn’t thrown out of court, the family will have their day in court suing a lot of people. If the case is thrown out, they can still sue everyone involved up to and including Baldwin.
You know, this is not the first time someone has been killed by someone misusing one of these guns loaded with blanks. Just because someone on the set, particularly the armorer, did not remember these things are still dangerous doesn’t mean everyone involved is absolved of blame. Ignorance is no defense–this will play into the future civil court cases very well.
I believe Baldwin already settled with the family.
Sorry but I have to correct you on multiple points. It was not a toy gun and Baldwin knew it. In fact, both actors and directors often insist on using real guns on sets so they can “Keep it Real” but even when non-operable replicas, or replicas that can only fire blanks are used an Armorer is still a feature on any film set where weapons are present.
Like any good actor, Baldwin familiarized himself with the weapon his character would be carrying and “shooting” in that film as he’d done previously in his career. Again, this is common. And Baldwin was an experienced enough actor to know how dangerous even a black round fired at close distance can be, especially from a revolver. Even a (large caliber) blank can cause serious injury or worse several feet from the muzzle of a weapon. In this tragedy the Director was farther away so a blank round (which btw shouldn’t have been in the gun for a rehearsal in the first place) shouldn’t have been a problem had one intentionally been fired in her direction.
There are procedures, literally written in blood that are supposed to be followed when it comes to weapons and firearms in particular on stages and film sets. In this tragedy they weren’t followed by every single person which is the ONLY way to ensure something awful, even fatal doesn’t happen. And yes, Baldwin is one of those who should have but didn’t follow protocol to the letter.
Does he remember actually pulling the trigger? It’s possible he doesn’t, either because he didn’t mean to (perhaps having an awkward moment with his grip and handling the pistol as he raised it) or due to what happened traumatic memory loss. Hell, there are moments from the first five to ten minutes after a car accident (that should have killed both me and others which I realized as soon as I stood looking at it from the side of the road) to several continuous hours later on as dusk turned into evening. It happens.
But, and this is important set aside any notions of accident discharge, as in the gun just going off by itself because “reasons”, or maybe thoughts of a “hair trigger” and other such stuff. This was a revolver from the era in question. It takes quite a bit more than a touch on the trigger to get it to shoot. Some of those revolvers from long ago actually had to have the hammer cocked before pulling the trigger would cause a round to fire. This is called single action. However, there were (and still are) what are called double action revolvers which allow for part of the trigger pull to cock the hammer and the second part to have the hammer fall forward and strike the firing pin causing the pistol to shoot – allowing literally one-handed shooting.
Regardless, that revolver wasn’t some fancied up with a hair trigger gun. And it didn’t go off without that trigger being pulled.
So, the question is in fact one of liability and whether there was negligence. It’s reported that the assistant Armorer who handed the weapon to Baldwin called out “Cold Gun” which to anyone familiar with procedures would mean informing anyone present that he had personally checked the gun and no cartridges (either real or blank) were in the chambers of the cylinders. That as we know wasn’t the case. The gun WAS loaded and either he didn’t check it as he was obligated to do, or didn’t properly do so and assumed what were real/live bullets were blanks. Either way his “Cold Gun” announcement was improper. There’s also the unlikely possibility he knew there were live bullets in the gun and didn’t care, or worse hoped that something bad would happen. I don’t believe that was the case. Just laziness and sloppiness on his part, as well as from the head Armorer for not maintaining tight supervision of all weapons and ammo on the set. For damned sure no one should have been able to take real guns off the set and do some shooting nearby.
That’s exactly how live rounds instead of blanks wound up mixed in together on that set.
As for Baldwin, he’s got enough experience with guns on sets to know what is koser and what isn’t. He trusted the system and the Cold Gun call, but many an actor would have with the Armorer right there opened the cylinder and looked to see if anything was in the chambers. I sure as hell would have. I used one of those old revolvers in a stage play in high school and unlike the replicas of old “six shooters” cast mates had that were .22 caliber blank guns mine was the real deal, and boy did it make a bang when fired! Having had plenty of experience with firearms by that time in life I wasn’t about to trust any adult including the old-timer who served as the one responsible for all the guns and loaded the blanks, handed them out and collected (and emptied) them when people came off stage.
I stood there right with him and verified it was blanks that were being loaded into that thing! And if I were a professional actor in a film I’d be damned sure I knew all about any firearm I’d be using and do the same fucking thing no matter who the Armorer was. And insist others do so. As I Director I’d expect that. And frankly so should producers active in putting the whole production together. Because the slightest bit of breakdown in safety leads to tragedy sometimes.
Is is criminal to the point of convicting someone and even sending them to jail? I’d want to be on the jury and hear every bit of evidence but frankly for me it’s a given there was negligence on the part of multiple people including (and I know this will be controversial to say) the Director for not insisting on tighter supervision by her Armorer. For me the actual question is whether the breakdown in safety was criminal, or a tragic “event cascade” that’s more appropriately dealt with via the civil courts rather than criminal ones.
The [extremely inexperienced] armorer has also been charged, and is in more legal danger for doing all kinds of Do NOT Do This stuff. Her career is pretty much toast, from what’s already come out.
Her father was almost the gold standard for how a Hollywood Armorer should run things on a film set, and she grew up around it. So while she was lacking in experience she wasn’t a newbie, as in some “gofer” from a couple of low budge flicks that suddenly got promoted either. The culture on that project seems to have turned into a “we’re on a limited budget and get this done” type of mentality and that’s dangerous beyond any firearms issues. It boils over into other stunt work, and locations and even general daily production with exhausted staff/crew. On this project they housed crew (if memory serves) in some cheap ass motel over an hour away, adding to fatigue maybe helping foster a too casual attitude. I’d say some of them picking weapons off the cart to go off and “plink” targets off set is proof of that. So producers, as in the money people are at fault here too. Baldwin himself had asked for a Producer credit but that’s a common thing for actors to do. Sometimes they do actual producer work and more often it’s just something for their ego and from initial reports that’s the case here for Baldwin. That could work both against him and in his favor at a trial whether criminal or civil. This whole tragedy opens a window on an ugly aspect to the movie biz, and Independent productions in particular. It comes down to money and spending as little as possible to get the film made. Corner cutting is the coin of the realm, and as we have sometimes seen in independent or low-budget studio films someone had to beg the bosses to get greenlighted it can cost them huge. Not just in a death like here or what happened to Brandon Crow via improper supervision of firearms but other stuff too. Uma Thurman suffered a devastating injury at the end of filming for the Kill Bill series due to treating a short driving scene casually. The bottom line here is that someone is dead who whouldn’t be dead, and there were multiple places along the path that led to her death that if handled differently would mean she’d be alive and we’d have gotten to see a completed version of Rust. But stuff that should have happened didn’t and at this point the question is whether the negligence should result in civil or criminal liability and penalties. There are legal standards that must be met for either type of case to proceed, and if criminal the matter of prosecutorial discretion comes into play. That’s a whole ugly can of worms sometimes and this is one of them. So my guess is that the prosecutor has a pretty damned solid case that would result in a conviction absent jury nullification which of course is possible. OTOH it’s also possible those average folks jurors will look at “big shots” that brought notoriety to their community and decide to send a message. We’ll see.
Multiple people interviewed yesterday said that Baldwin thought he was holding a “toy gun,” which I think is the name for one that cannot shoot live rounds. I watched about four interviews.
Additionally, I believe that I heard that Baldwin has already settled with the family. Every prosecutor that I saw yesterday said that the first question in deciding whether to charge is the likelihood of getting a conviction and none could foresee a conviction.
I think this is one of the most overcharged criminal complaints in a long time. Baldwin can likely strike a deal that’s a slap on the wrist but the fact that they added they added the gun enhancement that puts serious prison time in play, to me, is a travesty.
Or shot three people at a protest rally because somebody ‘attacked him with a skateboard’
IANAL, but I have been informed by someone who is that “Negligent Manslaughter” in New Mexico is unlike “Negligent Manslaighter” in many other states – maybe in any other state. In some states one charged with it might be ooking at 20 years. In New Mexico it’s more like 20 weeks max. It’s what would be called in Colorado a “Class five felony” which is “yeah, it’s techmically a felony, but seriously…” More like a glorified misdemeanor.