Alec Baldwin and armorer charged with Involuntary Manslaughter

[Jcordell]

Well, I thought the case had been closed. Obviously, I was wrong. Two counts each for Baldwin and Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. First assistant director David Halls has already agreed to plead guilty for the charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon. This will be interesting.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime...8e781341179e3a

[MT2008]

I knew the case wasn't closed, but I am surprised to hear that these charges will be filed. Quite frankly, it sounds like a pretty weak case to me, but we'll see how it goes. The negligence charge is going to be very difficult to argue given that Alec Baldwin was told by the assistant director that he had a cold gun; his defense is going to argue that his only crime was taking that statement at face value.

I'm also not terribly sympathetic to either of them at this point, given the comments that both have made publicly which indicate a failure to show genuine remorse or accept responsibility. Alec Baldwin has obviously done himself no favors by constantly claiming he didn't pull the trigger on the gun, even though the FBI forensics analyst who looked at the revolver determined it had no mechanical issues and couldn't have fired any other way. (Side note: in the process of trying to cover his ass, he's made himself the target of far too many memes in our community.) I also think that Hannah Gutierrez-Reed has similarly played herself by constantly issuing statements that the live ammo got onto the set as the result of "sabotage" - when you have to resort to conspiracy theories to prove your innocence, it goes without saying that you have a credibility problem.

I mostly just feel bad for the family of Halyna Hutchins and (to a lesser extent) Hannah's Dad. Even though he's (mostly) retired at this point, this has gotta be really hard on Thell Reed, both personally and professionally. I also feel bad for the Hollywood armorer community and all the BS that they've had to endure in the press from ignorant blowhards talking about how this incident proves that real guns should be banned on movie sets. It's also been surprising to me to see who's proven to be on their side (George Clooney) vs. who hasn't (Dwayne Johnson and Michael Chiklis).

[commando552]

I can imagine that the negligence might come about from how the set was being run, and as the producer some of that falls on Baldwin. It has been a long time since I read anything about this, but IIRC there was something funky with how the guns were being handled due to covid restrictions, in that the armourer was not actually on set and they were just left on a cart outside instead for the AD to hand off. This is also where he could be liable for negligence as an actor, as in why is he trusting the AD to tell him whether a gun is live and not the armourer? Due to his double role as actor and produced there are many different ways that they could be coming at him with all of this.

I am surprise that the guy who made the ammo has not gotten in any trouble. That was made by someone else and not Reed, and the police found something like 5 real live rounds mixed in with the dummies on set so it sounds like the guy who was reloading contaminated some of his dummies with lives.

[Spartan198]

I think it's safe to say Baldwin will get off with a slap to the wrist because he's rich and famous and his ilk are held to different legal standards than us, while all the blame will fall on Gutierrez-Reed.

[MT2008]

Meanwhile: Not sure how many people heard, but the 30th anniversary of Brandon Lee's death came and went last month. (And since he died at age 28, that means he's now been dead for longer than he was alive.) His sister made a comment for a CNN piece memorializing him that she doesn't understand why real guns are still used on movie sets, either.

[Spartan198]

And Bang Bang Baldwin gets off scot-free.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ru...15fb6644d&ei=8