It’s been less than four months. People are over their initial shock and now it’s going to get ugly for Alec Baldwin, whose gun accidentally discharged on a movie set, killing the cinematographer and injuring the director. Newsweek:
Hutchins’ family alleges in the suit that “reckless behavior” and “cost-cutting” led to Hutchins’ death, according to the complaint as reported by Deadline. Lawyers filed the suit in the First Judicial District Court in Santa Fe County on behalf of Matthew Hutchins, Hutchins’ husband, and their son, Andros. […]
The suit lists some of the cost-cutting measures, including hiring inexperienced and unqualified armorers, having the armorer double as an assistant props master, having “unreasonably rushed” production schedules, and hiring safety crew members that were inexperienced and unqualified.
“I think it’s clear what happened,” lead attorney Brian Panish told reporters during a press conference on Tuesday, Fox News reported. “Alec had the gun in his hand. He shot it. Halyna was killed.”
The Hutchins’ family lawyers said Baldwin “disregarded at least 15 industry standards” on the set of Rust, according to Fox News. One of the lawyers said Baldwin was responsible for Hutchins’ death.
There are other lawsuits involving the incident on the set of the film. Mamie Mitchell, Rust’s script supervisor, filed a lawsuit against Baldwin in November, alleging that he acted recklessly with the 6-shooter-style revolver used on the set.
Cheryln Schaefer, a medic on the film, filed a negligence lawsuit alleging “emotional distress” after Hutchins’ death. She performed lifesaving measures on Hutchins after she was shot.
Gutierrez-Reed filed a lawsuit against the PDQ Arm and Prop Company, which allegedly supplied the ammunition used when Hutchins was shot, and its owner, Seth Kenney, last month, according to a complaint acquired by Deadline. The lawsuit alleges that the company disseminated boxes of ammunition that were meant to have dummy rounds, “but which contained a mix of dummy and live ammunition to the Rust production.”
How you can have a mix of dummy and live in the same box is the giant question. It’s a tragic thing for Baldwin. The man is devastated by this incident, as anybody would be. This is a terrible position that he finds himself in. The larger issues to be dealt with are the fact that there were problems with gun safety before this tragic incident. Why they didn’t get solved at a smaller level, before somebody died, is the big question.
This is why insurance companies exist, for precisely these kinds of situations where, no matter who was at fault or what the intentions were, awful harm has been done and some kind of compensation needs to be made.
The best possible resolution of this for all parties concerned is to get this concluded as soon as possible so everybody can move on.
Baldwin does bear some of the liability as far as I’m concerned. After so long in the business and having used firearms on set previously he had to know, or at least suspect that things were not being done by the book every step of the way, and that the armorer was awfully young and inexperienced despite her father’s reputation. He of all people knows damn well that one person in a family that has genuine talent doesn’t ensure all of his brothers are equally gifted.
For me it still comes down to the basic gun safety my father drilled into me at a very young age, and was reinforced in Scouts, the Marines and once upon a time at clubs where shooting took place. During those years I was an actor/singer as well as an athlete there was only one production in which I carried (and fired) a firearm – my senior year in h.s. I played Curly in Oklahoma! and yes there was an adult backstage whose job it was to ensure only blanks were in the guns some of us carried, and that those who would do no shooting at all had NOTHING in the cylinders.
Prior to the barn scene he loaded my pistol and Steve’s (Judd) with blanks and handed to me and right there in front of him I opened the cylinder and took them out and verified & got his verbal confirmation of “Blank Round” as I reloaded each one, close the cylinder and holstered the thing. Steve did the same thing. Even though when we shot at the imaginary knotholes we’d be aiming just above the heads of the top row of the balcony.
THAT is the kind of safety that should be practiced and Baldwin shouldn’t have accepted the assurance of “Cold Gun” even from an armorer/assistant on a regular big studio set. He should have checked for himself and didn’t which resulted in a tragedy.
There is shared blame in all this and Baldwin has to accept some of that blame. Not all of it but some, and in my view a pretty hefty portion of it because had he just checked the gun himself after receiving it instead of relying on the person who told him it was safe he was the final link in the tragedy. As I’ve indicated I know I would have checked it myself. I haven’t held a firearm since moving to NC back in 2914 but I can assure you if someone handed me one, the first thing I’d do is (keeping it pointed in a safe direction) ensure it was unloaded, or if told it was loaded keep it pointed in a safe direction, ensure the safety was on (if it has one) and keep my finger off the goddam trigger unless/until it was time to shoot. And not go waving it around or practicing quick draw or other shit with even only blanks in the damned thing!
If Baldwin was careless, he bears some responsibility. A lot of what happened seems to be because the set, production, etc. was trying to save money. Often safety measures are the very first thing bean counters cut back on. If this was the case then the lion’s share of liability needs to be put to the the ones in charge of the bean counters-the production company, the studio, etc. It was a senseless tragedy and fingers can pointed all around but that is not going to bring the lady back. Hopefully the lawsuit results in such a large amount of money for the family that perhaps people will think twice before cutting safety measures.