Alec Baldwin update

[mehavey]

Minor edit. . .

 

[shafter]

If he was under the assumption that the gun was unloaded because he is on a movie set that involves scenes were people are shooting at each other, and the person in charge of the firearm hands it to him during filming, then I don't think he should be on the hook for the shooting. He would have to know that it was loaded with live ammunition and not blanks.

The person who gave it to him is responsible for checking and verifying no live ammunition is anywhere near the area. That's the person to hold responsible.

 

[mehavey]

If he was under the assumption that the gun was unloaded. . . .

I'll give you the old army saying...

Don't assume anything.
It makes an A$$ out of U and Me.

To pick up a gun and "assume" it's unloaded violates every rule, ever taught, by any one, and any time.
and the more he talks about how it "...wasn't his responsibility," and he "...didn't pull the trigger,"
the more negligent homicide rises as fairest let the jury decide option.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

If he was under the assumption that the gun was unloaded because he is on a movie set that involves scenes were people are shooting at each other, and the person in charge of the firearm hands it to him during filming, then I don't think he should be on the hook for the shooting. He would have to know that it was loaded with live ammunition and not blanks.

But the person in charge of firearms didn't hand it to him. She was elsewhere, doing something else -- and he knew that, because he was one of the people who made the decision to not pay for the armorer to be just an armorer.

The person who gave it to him is responsible for checking and verifying no live ammunition is anywhere near the area. That's the person to hold responsible.

Under the protocols adopted by the film industry decades ago, there are at least three people responsible. The protocol for loading a revolver with dummy rounds calls for the armorer -- in the presence of the assistant director AND the actor who will be handling the gun in that scene -- to manually shake each round before loading it, to allow all present to hear the BBs that are placed in dummy rounds to indicate that they are dummies. Only then is the armorer supposed to hand the gun to the actor.

In this incident, we still don't know who loaded the gun. The armorer was not present on the set. The guns had been left -- unsupervised -- on a cart. The assistant director picked up a gun (apparently without making any effort to check it), declared it to be a cold gun, and handed it to Baldwin. As a producer, with responsibility for site safety, Baldwin should have objected to the absence of the armorer. As an actor and member of the Screen Actors Guild, Baldwin should not have accepted the gun without having witnessed the checking of each round before it was placed in the gun.

I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree. IMHO Baldwin holds responsibility, perhaps shared with the assistant director, both as producer and as actor. Those protocols were put in place after firearms fatalities had occurred on movie sets. Their purpose, obviously, was to prevent another occurrence. Had the industry standard safety protocols been followed, the incident would not have occurred.

 

[mehavey]

Baldwin should not have accepted the gun without having witnessed
the checking of each round before it was placed in the gun.

I'll go further: Had Baldwin seen ANYthing loaded in the gun -- assumed blank or not -- he should
never have pointed it at an unprepared/unprotected human being and fired it, no matter what

 

[44 AMP]

I don't think he should be on the hook for the shooting. He would have to know that it was loaded with live ammunition and not blanks.

I think he should absolutely be "on the hook" for the shooting. HE DID IT! That fact is NOT in dispute. He should not be on the hook for doing it intentionally or deliberately, as (giving him the benefit of the doubt) he did not believe is was a loaded gun, because he had been told it wasn't. The fact that he, personally, did not check the gun violates gun safety rules, but not movie prop safety rules, which, sadly, were violated by others, which resulted in the accident.

The person who gave it to him is responsible for checking and verifying no live ammunition is anywhere near the area. That's the person to hold responsible.

Under movie industry rules, that is correct. And, under movie industry rules, it is management who is responsible for seeing the rules are correctly followed. Yes, the individual they hire is responsible for doing their job correctly. It is also the responsibility of the production company to ensure the person(s) they hire DO that. In that regard, they failed.

We have been informed, and discussed what those rules are, and what the actor's roles and responsibilities are, under them. And it has often been pointed out that the rules DO allow (properly checked and verified not loaded with live ammo) real guns to be pointed at real people on set, when the script calls for it.

I think all arguments about Baldwin not being responsible because as an actor he was not required to personally check the gun, and, as an actor is allowed to point a gun at others on set, are, while true, a red herring.

Particularly the second point. Ok, in this case, it appears that none of the industry rules about gun handling were being followed on that set that day. That's one BIG part of the problem, and I believe Baldwin has a degree of responsibility for THAT, as well.

However, what is not being given full weight in our discussion (so far) is that second part about pointing guns at people because the plot requires it. Yes, its allowed by industry rules, but I cannot and willnot give Baldwin a pass because of that, simply due to the fact that the woman who was shot and killed was NOT part of the movie cast. She was part of the crew, a cinematographer, not an actor where the script called for them to have a gun pointed at them or be shot. SHE WAS A BYSTANDER, and the reason she got shot was because Baldwin pointed the gun AT HER.

Certainly unintentional, and Baldwin may not have even been aware he was aiming at her (again, benefit of the doubt), but he did it. FOR THAT, he, Baldwin and ONLY Baldwin is responsible.

Based on what we've been told, so far, they were not filming, or even specifically rehearsing a scripted scene. Baldwin was literally "screwing around" on the set, with a gun he "knew" wasn't loaded, and therefore could not possibly hurt anyone. We can have different and valid opinions about what degree of responsibility he has, but I do not see how it can be reasonable to believe he has NO responsibility for the accident, or the resulting death.

And no, I don't think Baldwin is the only one who is responsible, either. But between his role as the "boss" of the movie company, and what he did on the set that day, I think he is responsible.

In one of the linked interviews a point was brought up about how the live rounds recovered from the set and other locations at the site had not been tested for fingerprints or DNA, implying that would identify who loaded the gun. I believe that is a false assumption.

Fingerprints and DNA can, at best, only tell who handled the ammunition. NOT when, or even be certain of everyone who handled the ammo. and it can not tell you if that person loaded the gun or not, only that the touched the ammo at some point. It MIGHT provide a list of people they need to talk to and investigate, though. Though it is also possible the person they are looking for might not be on that list, either....

Baldwin maintains that he did not pull the trigger, and therefore is not responsible. He may honestly believe that. Doesn't make it a fact. Information "leaked" from the FBI report seems to dispute that.

IF this goes to trial (and I hope it does) the trial will determine who is legally responsible, and to what degree.

 

[JohnKSa]

'll give you the old army saying...

Don't assume anything.
It makes an A$$ out of U and Me.

To pick up a gun and "assume" it's unloaded violates every rule, ever taught, by any one, and any time.

Wrong. There is a different set of rules on movie/TV sets. There has to be. Obviously.

But the person in charge of firearms didn't hand it to him. She was elsewhere, doing something else -- and he knew that, because he was one of the people who made the decision to not pay for the armorer to be just an armorer.

The fact that the armorer was not in place doing her job doesn't make the actor responsible. The actor is handed a firearm and is told what can and can't be done with it. If they follow the instructions, and something goes wrong, it's the responsibility of the person who handed it to them. That person should be the armorer or one of the armorer's staff and they are the ones responsible for firearm safety on set.

As an actor and member of the Screen Actors Guild, Baldwin should not have accepted the gun without having witnessed the checking of each round before it was placed in the gun.

You have supporting evidence for this claim?

Had Baldwin seen ANYthing loaded in the gun -- assumed blank or not -- he should
never have pointed it at an unprepared/unprotected human being and fired it, no matter what

When you become the king of the motion picture industry, you can tell them how to run their business. Until then, their rules apply. The bottom line is that making movies often requires actors to point guns at people. There are professionals hired to insure that safety is maintained in spite of the fact that the normal rules of gun safety obviously don't apply on set and in this case, the person paid to perform that function did not insure that safety was maintained.

I think all arguments about Baldwin not being responsible because as an actor he was not required to personally check the gun, and, as an actor is allowed to point a gun at others on set, are, while true, a red herring.

Since that is exactly what the discussion is about and in fact, it is the crux of the matter, it can't be a red herring. A red herring is an irrelevant point brought up as a distraction.

...the reason she got shot was because Baldwin pointed the gun AT HER.

Maybe a good lawyer can make an argument like this fly, I don't know but you never know what a jury will do. The point is that he had been handed an object that he was told was inert, that he knew he was going to point at people in the scene. Holding him responsible for pointing it at people doesn't make sense.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

IF this goes to trial (and I hope it does) the trial will determine who is legally responsible, and to what degree.

If it goes to trial, Baldwin will have a more expensive, higher power lawyer than either Hanna Guttierez or the assistant director can afford, so I don't hold out a lot of hope that Baldwin's full degree of responsibility will be shown in a trial.

 

[Paul B.]

"When you become the king of the motion picture industry, you can tell them how to run their business. Until then, their rules apply. The bottom line is that making movies often requires actors to point guns at people. There are professionals hired to insure that safety is maintained in spite of the fact that the normal rules of gun safety obviously don't apply on set and in this case, the person paid to perform that function did not insure that safety was maintained."

On this thing about actors pointing guns at other actors in a movie, I'm thinking there may not be as much of that at you think. If I sat down and thought real hard about it I could probably name at least a dozen where obviously the gun was pointed no where near the intended target. Django for one. He's shooting at a guy plowing a field and unless there was one hell of a wind blowing, no way would he have made that shot. At least two times in Shooter Bobby Lee is shooting a rifle at a helicopter and again the same thing. It's harder to spot when they're using handguns but it's there as well.

IIRC, when all this broke in the news, it was reported that the woman actual told Baldwin to point the gun at her. Apparently she wanted to check something about the angle. Funny, if it happened that way, why hasn't it been brought up?
Too many things just don't sit right with me on this.
Paul B.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

As an actor and member of the Screen Actors Guild, Baldwin should not have accepted the gun without having witnessed the checking of each round before it was placed in the gun.

You have supporting evidence for this claim?

https://www.tmz.com/2021/11/03/rust...e-rounds-dummy-steve-wolf-alec-baldwin-movie/

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/m...vie-munitions-experts-gun-safety-1235035713/#!

Carpenter explains that there are several types of rounds used on TV and film productions. One type is blank cartridges, which are rounds that contain gunpowder but no projectile. Depending on what look the director wants, the rounds can contain one-quarter, one-half or the full amount of powder. Another type is dummy rounds, which look like real bullets and are used for shots in which the director wants to see a firearm up close — while being loaded, for instance.

“For all intents and purposes, dummy rounds look like a real round but commonly have BBs inside instead of gunpowder. All the powder has been taken out and cleaned. The BBs are used so you can hear the shaking and rattling,” says Carpenter. “As an armorer myself, I bring my own dummy rounds that I have secured from reputable sources and I have checked them multiple times before taking them to several on-set sources, including the director, AD, DP, so you can get double verification before we let those things go out on set and in the hands of actors.”

https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/prop-guns-movie-sets-1.6221637

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-59035488

https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-rules-for-shooting-on-film-sets-71797

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/25/opinions/film-set-guns-safety-brown/index.html

https://www.ballisticmag.com/hollywood-gun-safety/

I can't find the links now but, at the time of the incident, I read multiple articles quoting various Hollywood armorers. They all agreed that loading either blanks or dummies into a gun was done only by the armorer, and only under the observation of both the assistant director and the actor who would be handling that gun for that scene.

 

[JohnKSa]

I'm not arguing that the rounds shouldn't have been checked to determine whether they were live or dummy rounds, of course they should have been checked.

Your claim was that the SAG requires the actor to be witness to the checking of each round. The sources are about the armorer or weapons master being responsible for checking them.

The sources do indicate that the actor has the right to watch the gun being loaded--when it is loaded. The last source claims that the gun should never have been called "cold" if it had anything loaded--including dummies. That again points directly at the armorer. If the actor was told the gun was completely empty--as in not loaded with anything at all--it makes no sense to hold him responsible for not watching it being loaded.

Every one of those sources states that the responsibility for firearm safety on the set is the armorer/weapons master. None of them states that the actors are responsible for firearm safety on the set--only that they are responsible for following instructions.

I get it that people don't like Baldwin. I don't either.

But I have to admit that I'm confused at how hard folks are working to try to make this his responsibility when it wasn't.

 

[mehavey]

If it goes to trial, Baldwin will have a more expensive, higher power
lawyer than either Hanna Guttierez or the assistant director. . . .

Preponderance, not "...beyond a reasonable doubt"

"A “preponderance of the evidence” simply means an amount of evidence that is
enough to persuade you that Plaintiff’s claim is more likely true than not true."
https://www.nmd.uscourts.gov/sites/nmd/files/Judge Brack Civil Stock Jury Instructions.pdf

Civil trial jury will eat him alive.

 

[44 AMP]

I feel he is responsible in the "captain of the ship" sense, and I feel he has a degree of responsibility since the gun was in his hands. I'm not saying he is legally liable (the court will determine that, if it goes that far), I just think that claiming he has NO responsibility is going too far.

personal opinion, nothing more. We'll all see how this plays out, as it does.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Your claim was that the SAG requires the actor to be witness to the checking of each round. The sources are about the armorer or weapons master being responsible for checking them.

Yes, the armorer is responsible for checking the rounds -- in the presence of the assistant director, the actor who will be handling that gun in that scene, and (if they wish) any other actors who will be involved in that scene.

Baldwin had to know this -- he has been an actor for decades, and this wasn't his first film involving firearms. But Baldwin has a monumental ego -- other reports from around the time of the incident were that he refused to participate in the firearms safety briefings called for in the industry protocols, because he believed he knew all there was to be known so he didn't need to be reminded. So I'm sure he didn't want to wait while someone chased down the armorer so she could properly check the gun and the cartridges. In the absence of the designated armorer, the assistant director perhaps should have then taken on that task (although that would certainly have been bending the rules, if not shattering them, since it would eliminate one layer of redundancy) ... but he didn't, and Baldwin (neither as actor nor as producer) didn't object to the complete departure from accepted industry safety protocols.

The result was that instead of a minimum of three people listening for the rattling of BBs to indicate that the rounds in the gun were dummies -- NOBODY did. And yet Baldwin accepted the gun as a "cold gun" even though he knew that the gun had not been checked in accordance with the industry protocols.

 

[Frank Ettin]

...who actually enforces, and what are the penalties for the movie "guidelines"? Imo, that's all they are, is just guidelines....

Guidelines can can be legally significant. How depends on exactly what happened.

There are all sorts of "guidelines" broadly accepted in many fields. The guidelines might be referred to as guidelines, industry standards, SOPs, protocols, or something similar.

When a "guideline" has been generally accepted in a given endeavor as the proper way to do something, the consequences to the actor for not following a guideline will depend on what happened. So assume your job involves performing certain task, and those tasks are to be performed by following the procedures set out in certain guidelines:

1. So if you're not very good about following those guidelines, but nothing bad happens as a result, your boss could still decide he doesn't like how you're doing your job and fire you for poor performance.
   
   
2. Or if you make a minor mistake and someone suffers an injury, a jury could find that you were negligent and must compensate the guy who got hurt.
   
   
3. Or if you make a major, reckless deviation from the guidelines resulting in severe injury or death to someone, you could also have criminal liability.

Basically, industry guidelines can be seen as setting the minimum standard of care required for the proper and safe performance of a task. The consequences of a failure to meet that minimum standard could, depending on the result of that failure, be (1) the loss of your job; and/or (2) civil liability; and/or (3) criminal liability.

Of course in real life in the real world things can get a lot more complicated, but that's the gist.

 

[JohnKSa]

The result was that instead of a minimum of three people listening for the rattling of BBs to indicate that the rounds in the gun were dummies -- NOBODY did.

Worse than that--the gun was handed to him as being cold--empty. Not loaded with dummies--completely empty. The gun was supposed to be empty per the person responsible for such things at the scene.

If they had told him it was loaded with dummies, maybe he would have asked to witness the loading maybe not, But since they told him it was empty, the point is moot.

 

[mehavey]

Wrong. There is a different set of rules on movie/TV sets.

Absolutely positively terminally incorrect.
Deadly stupidity has no excuse -- ever.

 

[HiBC]

I've never been on a movie set and I don't know what I am talking about.

I have heard movie production can be held up over the Union and "job descriptions"

I think the example I read recently was about needing a credentialed "driver" to
move the Dukes of Hazzard "General Lee" from the parking lot to the set.

It might take a certain "Gaffer" to apply duct tape.

Point is,if SAG requires an Armorer present to perform XYZ in order to use firearms on the set, then you must hold things up till the Armorer is present.

I can see Baldwin throwing a "Where is my Armorer?! " fit. Fine. Time and money wasted. Fine. But no one dies.
I can also see the Armorer responding " I was told to go do another job"

Producer Baldwin fails . No gun handling without the Armorer. Shut it down.

Get the Armorer, Fill her in . Give her 15 minutes (?) to clear her head,focus, prep, and have a huddle.

If Producer Baldwin wants to film a "Shoot Em Up" Western with no deaths,
Producer Baldwin must UTILIZE the Armorer.

The Armorer must be EMPOWERED to say Whoa! No! And to keep the guns locked up.

Producer Baldwin must back the Armorer up. And insist she keep the guns locked up . Maybe the ONLY guns on the cart should be non-firing replicas.

As a machinist I have worked in an environment that had a Tool Crib. I'd take my Work Order to the Tool Crib Attendant. I would be issued the specified tooling to do that job. Calbrated gauges. Sharp cutters,etc. Signed out,signed in. The tool crib was not "Help yourself"

Why would movie guns be any different? Producer Baldwin went around his Armorer. It remains to be seen if she was not a good Armorer, But Baldwin is ultimately responsible for prioritizing safety. He failed. If he sent the clear message through the chain of command "Safety is # 1" ! and gave EVERY Staff Member and Actor the power to say "Not safe! Shut it down" this may not have happened.

FWIW, I worked in a Manufacturing plant with about 1000 people. Each one of us was clearly given the power to stop production over an unsafe condition.
Our Management knew that NOTHING will kill profits faster than accidents/injuries. BIG numbers. Plus personal tragedy.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Worse than that--the gun was handed to him as being cold--empty. Not loaded with dummies--completely empty. The gun was supposed to be empty per the person responsible for such things at the scene.

If they had told him it was loaded with dummies, maybe he would have asked to witness the loading maybe not, But since they told him it was empty, the point is moot.

I'm not clear whether a gun loaded with dummies is considered to be a "cold" gun, a "hot" gun, or a "warm" gun. Dummies aren't supposed to fire -- not even smoke and muzzle flash. Hollywood uses dummies for precisely the kind of shot that was being set up when the incident occurred -- a shot in which the gun is pointing at or near the camera, so that the front of a revolver's cylinder is clearly visible. They need to have bullets visible in the chambers. That's basically the only use for dummy rounds on a set -- other than to take up space in the loops of a gunbelt.

And this is exactly the kind of scene where the industry guidelines call for the armorer to shake each round in front of the actor and the AD so that everyone can hear the BBs and verify that the dummy rounds ARE dummies, before the armorer loads them into the gun. The AD was negligent for picking up a gun from the cart and calling it "cold" without verifying that the dummy rounds were dummies, and Baldwin was negligent for accepting the gun from the AD without insisting that the proper loading protocol be followed.

 

[JohnKSa]

I'm not clear whether a gun loaded with dummies is considered to be a "cold" gun, a "hot" gun, or a "warm" gun.

You didn't read the articles you provided as sources. One of them provided a clear definition.

Dummies aren't supposed to fire -- not even smoke and muzzle flash. Hollywood uses dummies for precisely the kind of shot that was being set up when the incident occurred -- a shot in which the gun is pointing at or near the camera, so that the front of a revolver's cylinder is clearly visible. They need to have bullets visible in the chambers. That's basically the only use for dummy rounds on a set -- other than to take up space in the loops of a gunbelt.

Right. According to the source you provided, a gun is not called "cold" unless it is completely unloaded. No blanks, no live ammo, and no dummies. Completely unloaded.

And this is exactly the kind of scene where the industry guidelines call for the armorer to shake each round in front of the actor

What rounds? According to your source, the actor was told the gun was cold. That means there were no rounds in the gun--no live rounds, no blanks, no dummies.

The AD was negligent for picking up a gun from the cart and calling it "cold" without verifying that the dummy rounds were dummies

Well, this is partially correct. They didn't verify that the rounds were dummies, but more importantly, according to your source, when they told him the gun was cold, they were telling him there were no rounds at all in the gun. No live rounds, no blanks and no dummies. But the responsibility definitely falls on the armorer/weapons master.

...Baldwin was negligent for accepting the gun from the AD without insisting that the proper loading protocol be followed.

Wrong. The gun was handed to the actor as a cold gun and according to your source that means it is not loaded. What is the "proper loading protocol" for a gun that is not loaded?

Absolutely positively terminally incorrect.

You can say this all you want but it will never be true. Aquila Blanca provided a number of sources just a few posts up the thread explaining how movie sets are run. But even without that, common sense makes it clear that in an environment where guns must be pointed at persons, the context is completely different from the norm.

The concept is very simple, attempting to reject it is meaningless. One might as well try to argue that black is white and white is black. No matter how dogged one's determination is or how dedicated they are to their premise, they can never be correct.

You can keep saying: "Is too!" until the cows come home, but there's no evidence at all to support your opinion--all of the evidence proves it is wrong. The normal rules of gun safety are routinely violated on movie sets and doing so is not considered negligence.

HiBC,

You're on the right track. Baldwin is in trouble, because he's ultimately responsible for making sure that the overall production was run properly and clearly there were big problems.