Alec Baldwin fired prop gun, killing 1 on movie set, Oct 2021 #3

[Luna20]

Alec Baldwin ‘Rust’ shooting: Real bullet on movie set ‘completely mental and unprecedented,’ filmmaker says

 

[Luna20]

Yes and I cannot understand this defense, at all.

IMO this is equivalent to admitting she screwed up. How is it relieving her of culpability to say she didn't do her job of attending to weaponry and ammunition at all times? Smh.

It's like the Secret Service saying it's not their fault the president was assassinated, because they left him unguarded for a day. Or a boat captain saying it's not his fault the ship crashed into the rocks, because he took a a nap for a few hours instead of guiding the ship. Parents not knowing their toddler ran into traffic because they were watching TV. Or any of a million similar scenarios.

IMO

Yes and I’m more curious about her defense than I am of any others. The others will come in to scrutiny too though I think hers is the most challenging to defend. And her previous actions will just strengthen the case against her.

 

[PoppyBear]

Yes and I cannot understand this defense, at all.

IMO this is equivalent to admitting she screwed up. How is it relieving her of culpability to say she didn't do her job of attending to weaponry and ammunition at all times? Smh.

It's like the Secret Service saying it's not their fault the president was assassinated, because they left him unguarded for a day. Or a boat captain saying it's not his fault the ship crashed into the rocks, because he took a a nap for a few hours instead of guiding the ship. Parents not knowing their toddler ran into traffic because they were watching TV. Or any of a million similar scenarios.

IMO

BBM

However, they would not be charged with actually assassinating the president. The person(s) who assassinated the president would be at fault. I think it is fairly unlikely that anyone who pointed a gun and pulled the trigger at Biden tomorrow, even if they believed the gun to not have live rounds in it, they would face charges. I highly doubt they would be grabbing coffee in Vermont.

I can agree she LIKELY didn't do her job well and that is a huge fail when firearms are involved, especially when someone is shot. I also agree that she also would be dealing with a much different situation if it were the president, but I don't think she would be facing the same things the person who pulled the trigger is facing.

 

[Luna20]

Since the revolver as evidence was reportedly tampered with before LE arrived (unloaded by the armorer on orders of the AD, which she should have refused) a key piece of evidence has been rendered worthless: how many rounds were in the cylinder at the time the weapon fired. If there were five, the live round would likely have been the first loaded to place it in the "ready to fire" position. If there were six, it would likely be the second loaded.

Another key piece of evidence is the timing and the nature of the instruction given to the armorer to prepare the weapon for the rehearsal. How many rounds was she told to load, and was the instruction written, verbal, text, email, part of the script or what? How much time was she given to insert the rounds? Was the weapon empty or loaded when unattended, if it was unattended? Haven't seen much, if anything, about that.

This thread has discussed the implications of live ammunition "on the set" without defining what is meant by "the set." Was it the whole Bonanza Creek Ranch, the town, or some other area? One person can assert that there was live ammunition on "the set" and another deny it and they both can be right because they were using two different definitions of "the set."

Anyone claiming sabotage has to explain two things: how the live round got into the weapon and how the cylinder happened to be turned to the one out of six possible positions that placed the live round ready to fire. Lots of conversation so far about the first point, not so much about the second.

All good points, there is so much that we don’t know. And it looks like everyone is going to place blame on everyone they can. From what I have seen they are saying that they have the bullet that killed HH. Hopefully that will help to some degree.

I have not immersed myself on the type of ammo or gun. To me it ultimately comes down to the 2 points you made. It starts with her loading the gun. Shame on her if she looked away and someone else put live ammo in. I don’t believe that happened but if she claims that she is still responsible for the gun being with her at all times.

 

[PoppyBear]

Alec Baldwin 'Rust' shooting warrants suggest violations of industry firearms standards, documents show

In all caps with bold, underlined letters, the first line reads, "BLANKS CAN KILL. TREAT ALL FIREARMS AS THOUGH THEY ARE LOADED. ‘LIVE AMMUNITION’ IS NEVER TO BE USED NOR BROUGHT ONTO ANY STUDIO LOT OR STAGE."

Furthermore, guns should never be pointed at anyone "unless absolutely necessary to do so on camera," according to the CSATF guidance.

"Refrain from pointing a firearm at anyone, including yourself," the protocols read, and "NEVER place your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to shoot."
​

 

[steeltowngirl]

(CNN)The "Rust" armorer, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, loaded the gun with what she thought were dummy rounds before Alec Baldwin used it on set, fatally shooting the movie's cinematographer, lawyers for the armorer said in an interview with NBC that aired Wednesday.

"There was a box of dummy rounds and the box is labeled dummy. Hannah did take from that box which she by all accounts should have been able to rely on, that contains only dummy rounds," said Gutierrez Reed's lawyer Jason Bowles. "She loaded rounds from that box into the handgun only to later find out -- and she had no idea -- she inspected the rounds, that there was a live round. Now we don't know, however, whether that live round came from that box. We're assuming it did. We're assuming somebody put the live round in that box, which if you think about that, the person who put the live round in the box of dummy rounds had to have the purpose of sabotaging this set. There's no other reason you would do that."

'Rust' armorer thought she loaded the gun with dummy rounds, lawyer says - CNN

 

[jjenny]

Kind of a bizarre defense. An armorer should be able to tell the difference between a real live ammo and dummy ammo. Not just rely on what is written on the box. At least one live ammo was in the box? I guess we are lucky they didn't have a big gun scene where all of the actors were shooting at each other with supposed dummy rounds.

 

[steeltowngirl]

I hope they have the exact box of ammo that HGR used to load the gun, and that it was not tampered with before investigators arrived on scene. If there was truly one live round in the box, there were likely more than one.

It is also possible that HGR loaded dummies in the empty slots, but a live round was already in the gun. In other words, the gun was not completely unloaded from its previous use.

 

[Mo Thuairim]

Kind of a bizarre defense. An armorer should be able to tell the difference between a real live ammo and dummy ammo. Not just rely on what is written on the box. At least one live ammo was in the box? I guess we are lucky they didn't have a big gun scene where all of the actors were shooting at each other with supposed dummy rounds.

I think it's only going to get more bizarre. Everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else the last couple of days, and now we have mysterious saboteurs in the mix too.

 

[mickey2942]

The only scenario that works in this defense that HGR states, she loaded ammunition in the gun from a box of "dummy" ammo.

1. She did not carefully inspect that the gun was fully empty when she loaded the gun.
2. She did not carefully inspect each bullet, as she loaded the gun, to verify each bullet was a "dummy".
3. Was there a point in time, where the gun was out of her personal control, prior to when Halls picked up the gun from the cart?
4. Now, we are into more possibilities that the bullets were deliberately switched.

 

[Gardenista]

(CNN)The "Rust" armorer, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, loaded the gun with what she thought were dummy rounds before Alec Baldwin used it on set, fatally shooting the movie's cinematographer, lawyers for the armorer said in an interview with NBC that aired Wednesday.

"There was a box of dummy rounds and the box is labeled dummy. Hannah did take from that box which she by all accounts should have been able to rely on, that contains only dummy rounds," said Gutierrez Reed's lawyer Jason Bowles. "She loaded rounds from that box into the handgun only to later find out -- and she had no idea -- she inspected the rounds, that there was a live round. Now we don't know, however, whether that live round came from that box. We're assuming it did. We're assuming somebody put the live round in that box, which if you think about that, the person who put the live round in the box of dummy rounds had to have the purpose of sabotaging this set. There's no other reason you would do that."

'Rust' armorer thought she loaded the gun with dummy rounds, lawyer says - CNN

I had a feeling something like this would be brought up. They are going with the sabotage angle right now, but I'm still wondering if they will bring up manufacturing/packaging error. Blaming and naming the ammo manufacturer is much more dangerous in terms of lawsuits than blaming an unknown crew member.

 

[katydid23]

I agree that knowing what ammo is what, and what she was loading in the weapon is her job. Being able to magically know what every person has brought onto the set is quite another and that's what I was commenting on.

As to whether the gun needed to have anything in it, that would be the call of the director. Apparently dummy rounds were what she was suppose to have loaded and that she did load 4. The question is then why was the 5th one a live round in the weapon and did she in fact put it in there? IMO

Mike F:
"Apparently dummy rounds were what she was suppose to have loaded and that she did load 4. The question is then why was the 5th one a live round in the weapon and did she in fact put it in there?"

I agree with the above. Which is why it was weird to read this from her attorney today:

He reiterated the point later on when pressed about whether Gutierrez “re-checked” the gun.

“She did spin the cylinder; she showed Mr. Halls each of the rounds,” Bowles said. “There were six dummy rounds that she had loaded into that firearm that she believed had been dummy rounds. She did spin it; she did check it.”

Halls eventually gave the gun to Baldwin.

'Rust' Armorer's Lawyers Say 'Disgruntled' Person May Have Tried to 'Sabotage' Alec Baldwin Film

So HG is admitting she put SIX dummy rounds in that weapon. Halls said there were FIVE found in the gun when they checked it after the shooting.

So does that mean she just admitted to loading the gun with the live bullets?

 

[Luna20]

I had a feeling something like this would be brought up. They are going with the sabotage angle right now, but I'm still wondering if they will bring up manufacturing/packaging error. Blaming and naming the ammo manufacturer is much more dangerous in terms of lawsuits than blaming an unknown crew member.

Her only defense is the box and bullets ‘looked’ just like the live ones. I fully expect that they will pursue that also but going against a manufacturer is going to be hard to prove.

 

[katydid23]

What was the third misfire event? There's the one with the stunt double and the prop assistant who shot herself in the foot.

Wow, line producer has zero empathy for the tragedy.

I think the stunt double misfired two shots, and that is why they are saying 3 misfires all together.

 

[Luna20]

I read

Alec Baldwin ‘Rust’ shooting: Real bullet on movie set ‘completely mental and unprecedented,’ filmmaker says

I just read this again. What does this mean, a lead slug?

“But police said last week that they’d recovered real bullets from the set and that a lead slug had been pulled out of director Joel Souza’s shoulder”

 

[Luna20]

Re-post to ask if AB should have never fired without HG being there? Is that the industry’s protocol?

“The attorneys also insisted that Baldwin should never have fired the gun without the presence of his armorer, who was outside the church at the time, thinking they were only prepping the cameras.

“If there was something that was going to involve one of the firearms, she had to be there,” Gorence said.

“She wasn’t in the church because it wasn’t set up to have that dynamic of, ‘We’re going to use one of these firearms.’ The only tech prep was positioning cameras. She wasn’t there,” he said, calling it a “critical point.”


Hannah Gutierrez-Reed's attorney suggests 'Rust' crew 'sabotaged' set

 

[MikeF]

Mike F:
"Apparently dummy rounds were what she was suppose to have loaded and that she did load 4. The question is then why was the 5th one a live round in the weapon and did she in fact put it in there?"

I agree with the above. Which is why it was weird to read this from her attorney today:

He reiterated the point later on when pressed about whether Gutierrez “re-checked” the gun.

“She did spin the cylinder; she showed Mr. Halls each of the rounds,” Bowles said. “There were six dummy rounds that she had loaded into that firearm that she believed had been dummy rounds. She did spin it; she did check it.”

Halls eventually gave the gun to Baldwin.

'Rust' Armorer's Lawyers Say 'Disgruntled' Person May Have Tried to 'Sabotage' Alec Baldwin Film

So HG is admitting she put SIX dummy rounds in that weapon. Halls said there were FIVE found in the gun when they checked it after the shooting.

So does that mean she just admitted to loading the gun with the live bullets?

My understanding was that when Hall gave the gun back to HGR and told her to open it, they saw 4 dummy rounds and 1 casing with no bullet. So if that latest statement is true then they should have found 5 dummy rounds, and the one empty casing.

Editing this comment. Here is what was said:

After the shooting, Mr. Halls said he picked up the gun from a pew inside the church and took it to Ms. Reed. When she opened it, he said, according to the affidavit, he could see “at least four dummy casings with the holes on the side, and one without the hole. He advised this did not have the cap on it and was just the casing.” Dummy rounds are sometimes identified by a pierced hole on the side.

Dave Halls, the assistant director, said he did not thoroughly check the gun he handed to Alec Baldwin, according to an affidavit.


So it was "at least" four rounds, which could actually mean five.

 

[Mo Thuairim]

I read


I just read this again. What does this mean, a lead slug?

“But police said last week that they’d recovered real bullets from the set and that a lead slug had been pulled out of director Joel Souza’s shoulder”

A bullet (slug) made of lead.

 

[Gardenista]

Her only defense is the box and bullets ‘looked’ just like the live ones. I fully expect that they will pursue that also but going against a manufacturer is going to be hard to prove.

Yes, but IMO if they can somehow make that argument they will because an ammo manufacturer has WAY deeper pockets than anyone else involved. Doesn't get their clients completely off the hook, but it's better than nothing. They will also then get to point the finger at the gun industry.

Not saying it will happen, just something I've been mulling over.

 

[Luna20]

Yes, but IMO if they can somehow make that argument they will because an ammo manufacturer has WAY deeper pockets than anyone else involved. Doesn't get their clients completely off the hook, but it's better than nothing. They will also then get to point the finger at the gun industry.

Not saying it will happen, just something I've been mulling over.

Agree on the latter ‘gun industry’. Not sure I’m following the former. Are you saying that she personally would sue the manufacturer in order to further her innocence?