339
submitted 10 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

Grand jury in New Mexico charged the actor for a shooting on Rust set that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins

Actor Alec Baldwin is facing a new involuntary manslaughter charge over the 2021 fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the movie Rust.

A Santa Fe, New Mexico, grand jury indicted Baldwin on Friday, months after prosecutors had dismissed the same criminal charge against him.

During an October 2021 rehearsal on the set of Rust, a western drama, Baldwin was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins when it went off, fatally striking her and wounding Joel Souza, the film’s director.

Baldwin, a co-producer and star of the film, has said he did not pull the trigger, but pulled back the hammer of the gun before it fired.

Last April, special prosecutors dismissed the involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin, saying the firearm might have been modified prior to the shooting and malfunctioned and that forensic analysis was warranted. But in August, prosecutors said they were considering re-filing the charges after a new analysis of the weapon was completed.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] chaogomu@kbin.social 3 points 10 months ago

Did you miss the part a bit earlier where it said he was handed a gun and told it was cold?

The fact that he was asking questions of the director about how he was going to draw and "fire" the gun is pointless, because everyone on set thought it was cold.

According to a search warrant, the guns were briefly checked by armorer Gutierrez-Reed, before assistant director Halls took the Pietta revolver from the prop cart and handed it to Baldwin.[38][39] In a subsequent affidavit, Halls said the safety protocol regarding this firearm was such that Halls would open the loading gate of the revolver and rotate the cylinder to expose the chambers so he could inspect them himself. According to the affidavit, Halls said he did not check all cylinder chambers, but he recalled seeing three rounds in the cylinder at the time. (After the shooting, Halls said in the affidavit, Gutierrez-Reed retrieved the weapon and opened it, and Halls said that he saw four rounds which were plainly blanks, and one which could have been the remaining shell of a discharged live round.)[40] In the warrant, it is further stated that Halls announced the term "cold gun", meaning that it was empty.[38] Halls's lawyer, Lisa Torraco, later sought to assert that he did not take the gun off the cart and hand it to Baldwin as reported, but when pressed by a reporter to be clear, she refused to repeat that assertion.[41]

[-] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip -1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

There are a lot of statements quoted. What I quoted was what I remembered reading. Anyway, the fact of what he actually did that was criminal is not being contested by anyone here, it's that it was criminal, as if responsibility for any action at all can be offloaded via documents signed. That'd be false.

[-] chaogomu@kbin.social 2 points 10 months ago

Except that Baldwin really didn't do anything criminal, despite what you say.

There are a lot of court cases about this out of California and Georgia. Liability for the death is squarely on the armorer.

Unfortunately, this happened in a Trump friendly state, and the prosecutor wants to make a name for themselves by sticking it to the guy who made fun of Trump.

[-] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 0 points 10 months ago

Saying "bang" and waving a gun is what I call "criminal stupidity".

and the prosecutor wants to make a name for themselves by sticking it to the guy who made fun of Trump.

Everybody and their dog made fun of Trump.

[-] chaogomu@kbin.social 1 points 10 months ago

Except he wasn't just waiving the gun around.

He's an actor, and he was practicing the movements necessary for the scene.

It's called rehearsal. It's normal.

He said bang, because that would have been the end of the scene. Man points a gun at the camera, says his lines, and then pulls the trigger.

You've seen that exact scene in dozens of films and TV shows.

[-] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 1 points 10 months ago

OK, see my other comment a minute ago.

this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
339 points (95.7% liked)

News

23301 readers
1023 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS