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flanderguitar t1_jefvnnj wrote

>The first assistant director for "Rust" has been sentenced to six months unsupervised probation as part of a plea deal in connection with the fatal on-set shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

Doesn't seem like very much after a person died because of this negligence.

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Hooterdear t1_jeg496x wrote

I imagine that a stronger sentence will be handed to the weapon props master

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Impressive-Potato t1_jegcvu5 wrote

She wasn't brought on the set because they said she wasn't needed. The AD took the gun and handed it to baldwin. The AD runs the set and didn't bring her on set. He's responsible for this.

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reddragon105 t1_jegqkds wrote

Yep, he decided to go ahead with an unscheduled rehearsal of a scene that involved a firearm without calling in the armorer, who was working elsewhere on set in her second role as props assistant at the time. He wasn't in any position to handle the gun, declare it "cold" or check it for safety - and he should have know that considering he's got credits going back almost 30 years.

A lot of other things went wrong - like the decision to only hire a part time armorer for a western movie, the line producer downplaying the priority of gun safety, and however live ammunition got in the gun (crew playing around with it? Ammo mixed up in the boxes?) - but the AD is definitely negligent for declaring the gun cold without calling in the armorer.

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Impressive-Potato t1_jegqrsm wrote

Exactly. People saying "she was on set at the time!" No she wasn't. She was somewhere else because it was a rehearsal with no firearms. The AD took the gun.

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Hooterdear t1_jegk0cl wrote

Both, the prop master, Sarah Zachary and armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed were on set when it happened.

https://abc7.com/rust-movie-set-shooting-new-details-prop-master/11910857/

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reddragon105 t1_jegovp9 wrote

But not present during the scene. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was hired as both armorer and props assistant, and days before the shooting a line producer had told her off for dedicating too much time to weapons safety and not enough to assisting the props master. She pushed back, complaining about the lax gun safety on set, but was overruled. So on the day of the shooting she was elsewhere, assisting the props master, as she'd been told to.

Then the AD decided to go ahead with an unscheduled rehearsal that involved a gun without calling for the armorer. He took the weapon, declared it cold himself, and handed it to Baldwin - none of which he should have done, and he should have known that. So he's definitely negligent in that sense but obviously a bunch of things went wrong leading up to this - not least bad management. I mean who hires a part time armorer on a western?

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Relevant_Quantity_49 t1_jeh0vnx wrote

Lax gun safety like she's alleged to have demonstrated while working on The Old Way?

>While working as an armorer on “The Old Way,” a Nicolas Cage western shot in Montana, Gutierrez Reed sent Kenney a text message on Aug. 15 in which she asked the weapons provider if she could “shoot hot rounds out of the trap door,” the report stated. > >“Wtf is a hot round?” Kenney asked in response, to which Gutierrez Reed replied, “Like a pretty big load of actual ammunition,” according to the report. > >The report states that Kenney “tells her never to shoot live ammo out of tv/movie guns, and to only use blanks” and follows up by saying, “It’s a serious mistake, always ends in tears.” > >“Good to know, I’m still gonna shoot mine tho,” Gutierrez Reed responded, according to the report.

That's just the most eyebrow-raising behavior. She was also apparently just a general disaster as an armorer.

It was fucking stupid to hire a part-time armorer for a Western, but there's no reason to believe Gutierrez-Reed was a paragon of gun safety. Armorer on two sets with gun safety issues is pretty damning.

Whether the involuntary manslaughter charges are appropriate or not is a matter for the court to decide. Either way, her career in Hollywood should probably be over.

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VeteranSergeant t1_jegg277 wrote

What difference would she have made? She handed him a gun she said was loaded only with inert rounds, but instead had live ammunition in it. It wasn't part of his role in the chain of custody to inspect the ammunition. Regardless of any safety violations by Baldwin or the AD, she negligently loaded a prop weapon with live ammunition, something that should never have happened. She failed to inspect the ammunition while it was in storage, then failed to inspect the ammunition a second time when she loaded the weapon.

Trying to blame the AD for the lion's share of the responsibility when his only interaction with the weapon was to take it from the armorer in a declared "cold" state and hand it to Baldwin is ridiculous. He's getting punished accordingly. He should have done more to prevent an accident, but the accident is not a direct result of anything he did.

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reddragon105 t1_jegobuo wrote

No, the AD didn't take the gun from the armorer - he picked it up, declared it cold himself, and handed it to Baldwin. None of which he was supposed to do in his capacity as AD. That's how he was negligent.

The armorer wasn't present at the time - she was on set somewhere, but not told they were about to use a weapon as it was an unscheduled rehearsal. The AD decided to proceed without the necessary supervision.

And the armorer wasn't even working as armorer at the time - she was hired for two jobs: armorer and props assistant, and days before the shooting a line producer had told her off for dedicating too much time to weapons safety and not enough to assisting the props master. She pushed back, complaining about the lax gun safety on set, but was overruled. So on the day of the shooting she was elsewhere, assisting the props master, as she'd been told to.

The whole thing is a clusterfuck of bad management and complacency, but at the end of the day the AD should have known better than to use a weapon in a scene that had not been checked by the professional person whose responsibility it was to check it.

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Krandor1 t1_jeg6t9c wrote

yep. the person who appears to be most at fault

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jonathanrdt t1_jeg7xvo wrote

And had a history of seemingly negligent behavior.

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DeficiencyOfGravitas t1_jegr5ps wrote

The person who is most at fault is always the person who pulled the trigger. Hollywood shouldn't get to ignore weapons safety because it is convenient.

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Krandor1 t1_jegrmar wrote

If the armorer does her job right a loaded gun is never in baldwins hand. Gun safety on set literally is her job. She failed. Baldwin is partially responsible but if she follows procedures there are never ever live rounds on set to get into the gun in the first place. Thst is the reason you have an armorer.

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GI_X_JACK t1_jegt89e wrote

From what has previously been posted. This is the armorer Baldwin hired, and then ignored because it was more or less his set. From what other people have said. Baldwin didn't let her do her job correctly. She was hired because she was cheap, and new.

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Less_Tennis5174524 t1_jegzbsw wrote

"What other people said" or in other words bullshit. We dont really know anything about his involvement at all. He has a producer credit but that could just be ego padding.

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GI_X_JACK t1_jeh0bq1 wrote

He also co-wrote the script.

Again, we'll see what people are willing to say in court.

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DeficiencyOfGravitas t1_jegs83f wrote

Every gun you receive is assume loaded until you check it yourself. There is no trust system in firearm safety. Only Hollywood operates with the "Bro, dude, I totally checked it, just point it at her and pull the trigger, bro, it's safe" system.

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Rnevermore t1_jegz4xn wrote

Standard gun safety rules do not apply on a movie set... This should be REALLY obvious. Movie sets use a completely different set of rules, and they seem to work fine because Hollywood has a much lower than average rate of incidents.

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Medievalhorde t1_jegsq5w wrote

You have to convince twelve other people to think your way and if most are not blaming Alec Baldwin before the trial, I don't see a snowball chance in hell of twelve people aligning that way either.

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malphonso t1_jegxf7l wrote

Maybe they should get Clooney to be a subject matter witness.

"Every single time I’m handed a gun on the set — every time — they hand me a gun, I look at it, I open it, I show it to the person I’m pointing it too, I show it to the crew,” Clooney said. “Every single take.” Then, “You hand it back to the armor when you’re done.” He said. Part of it is because of what happened to Brandon. Everyone does it. Everyone knows” that is the protocol to follow. “Maybe Alec did that — hopefully he did do that. But the problem is dummies are tricky because they look like real [rounds]. They got a little tiny hole in the back [from which] somebody’s [removed] the gunpowder"..."I mean every time I get handed a six-gun,” or a gun that holds six cartridges, “you point it at the ground and you squeeze it six times,” Clooney said, noting “It’s just insane” not to.

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Rnevermore t1_jegufj0 wrote

No. Not even a little. A movie set does not have to (and should not have to) follow the standard gun safety rules because their business often relies on handling firearms in an 'unsafe' manner.

Movies use a different set of rules, usually involving armourers, propmasters, assistant directors and other staff ensuring the safety of weapons on the set, and, most importantly, accepting liability in the case of an incident.

If I were an armourer on a movie set, I wouldn't want some stupid actor fucking around and tinkering and checking MY gun. If I have liability for that gun, you do not fuck with it because that's my ass on the line.

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GI_X_JACK t1_jegt3db wrote

No, the person most at fault is the person who set up shitty working conditions.

This is akin to someone dying in a forklift accident in a factory. It sounds like "tragic accident" until you hear how the boss was an asshole and skimped on safety measures, and ignored previous failures that could have resulted in death, but people got lucky, but then never changed anything to prevent it from happening again. Except it did, and then someone died.

And Alec Baldwin is the producer, co-writer of the script, and was responsible for running an unsafe, slipshod set. Its also somewhat infuriating as the man who's rep from his OWN union, was keen on hiring non-union scabs to break a strike.

We'll see what comes out in his trial, but unless people are making shit up, people are saying he violated every safety protocol both as producer and and ignored the safety brief as an actor as well. But again, we'll see who actually says what under oath.

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DeficiencyOfGravitas t1_jegtm0n wrote

> No, the person most at fault is the person who set up shitty working conditions. > >

If your boss tells you to do something dangerous, and you still do it, you are still responsible. Both people should be charged, but the person who actually did the dangerous thing is the most responsible.

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GI_X_JACK t1_jegvda6 wrote

The person with most amount of agency to say no is the most responsible. So person in charge.

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DeficiencyOfGravitas t1_jegvycp wrote

> The person with most amount of agency to say no is the most responsible

So the person actually doing the thing. You always have the agency to say no. To anything. At anytime. There may be consequences for saying no. But you are always able to do so.

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GI_X_JACK t1_jegz81s wrote

If you are on set as an actor. You have a reasonable assumption if you are handed a weapon, and you are told it is cold, that it is in fact cold, because of all the protocols to check it.

The people who did not follow those protocols are at fault. In this case, it loops back around because Baldwin was not just producer, but intimately involved with this production so much, he's in charge, and safety protocols where broken.

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reddragon105 t1_jegp8un wrote

I think you mean armorer, which is a different role to props master, but that's who most people seem to want to blame.

But it needs to be emphasised that the armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was hired as both armorer and props assistant, and days before the shooting a line producer had told her off for dedicating too much time to weapons safety and not enough to assisting the props master. She pushed back, complaining about the lax gun safety on set, but was overruled. So on the day of the shooting she was elsewhere, assisting the props master, as she'd been told to.

It was the AD who decided to go ahead with an unscheduled rehearsal that involved a gun without calling for the armorer. He took the weapon, declared it cold himself, and handed it to Baldwin - none of which he should have done, and he should have known that. So he's definitely negligent in that sense but obviously a bunch of things went wrong leading up to this - not least bad management. I mean who hires a part time armorer on a western?

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HoopOnPoop t1_jefyn36 wrote

>>...testify in all hearings involving the shooting and have no contact with co-defendants or witnesses.

I think this shows they were willing to go a little easy on him so they can go all out on the others.

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beiberdad69 t1_jegqq9p wrote

Probably bc the charge he pleaded no contest to has nothing to do with death in any way, it was a weapons handling charge

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nomofica t1_jeg51yy wrote

He was the least culpable of the bunch. I don't know what will happen to Baldwin, but he's more culpable than this guy because it was his project and set. The prop master IMO is the most culpable because it's literally their job to ensure what happened never does, they supply and maintain the props.

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americasweetheart t1_jegld4j wrote

The AD is responsible for safety on set. Everyone but the director defers to the AD on set.

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