Lawyers for ‘Rust’ armourer move to get case dismissed after Baldwin trial collapses
Lawyers for ‘Rust’ armourer move to get case dismissed after Baldwin trial collapses
I’m just gonna go ahead and say it.
Failing to tell the defense they had the bullets recovered on set is a freaking stupid move. Like it’s incomprehensible how a prosecutor of any amount of experience- or even an intern at the office in their first week- could make such an abysmally stupid mistake.
To put it another way: someone threw the case, intentionally.
Or, it really was a politically motivated trial and the prosecution was willing to cover up exculpatory evidence in order to manipulate the justice system. Either way, its damning.
Nah, this sort of shit happens all the time.
Baldwin just has the power and influence to fight the charge.
Not on high profile cases, no it does not.
(Well, excluding Trump trials … Trump truly hires the best.)
I think you overestimate Baldwin's current star power. These days, he's a B-lister, at best. Aside from this trial, he hasn't really been relevant in pop culture for a while now.
He's still rich, for sure. But I doubt he's still rich enough to buy a judge, if he ever was to begin with.
My cynical self agrees with you. But also, Hanlon's Razor.
She was in charge of keeping things safe, she failed in her responsibilities and someone died. She is at fault and should face the consequences.
I know right. The logic seems to be "well he didn't get charged for it so I shouldn't be either". Yeah, but keeping weapons safe was your job, not his.
The case was dismissed because of misconduct by the police and prosecutors. It has nothing to do with being charged, he was charged. She's saying the same thing happened in her case, so if his case was dismissed so should her conviction. So yeah, if the same misconduct happened, then it should obviously be overturned too.
And make no mistake about it, if you accidentally caused the death of someone, you would be looking for every opportunity to have the case dismissed too.
What's the ultimate goal? If it's purely punitive, then sure.
But if the goal is anything other than that, I don't see the point. It's not any rehabilitation she needs would come in prison. It's not like anyone who look at this and say "well, I can be careless and just bank on the cops fucking up," so the deterrence is already there. And I can think of hundreds of better ways she can make it up to the victims.
So is that it? Is it really just about "facing the consequences?"
What will it help? She will stay dead and another life is destroyed? It will not prevent it from happening again, more than the death of an innocent person.
Classic example of poor/ lack of regulation in USA. (Mah freedum)
Obviously a prop weapon shouldn't even be able to shoot real bullets.
This can easily be accomplished by making the prop weapon 1mm smaller, so real bullets can't even be inserted.
To tell them apart the prop ammo could have a slightly toned line in the length of the bullet, which would be hard to see on film, because it look like a reflection, and could even be pointed away when filming. But would be easy to detect when holding the bullet, because the reflection wouldn't move right when you hold it. It would work kind of like a watermark on bills.
Why the movie industry hasn't implemented better security themselves IDK, except the obvious, not doing it is slightly cheaper. Except the easier positive identification of a prop, would probably make for a smoother work flow, so even if the equipment is a bit more expensive, it would be recouped by smoother workflow, and zero accidents.
But by far the easiest and cheapest solution is a federal law, because that would standardize it for all.
Obviously a prop weapon shouldn't even be able to shoot real bullets.
I know a guy who teaches stage combat for live theater and have seen him on more than one occasion talk directors out of using prop firearms that fire blanks (think something akin to a starters pistol). These guns have filled barrels, etc. so there’s no way they could ever fire an actual projectile.
One of the huge problems with these sorts of guns is that they’re very prone to misfiring. For whatever reason the manufacturing quality of both starter guns and the blanks they use just isn’t as good as real firearms. The last thing you want in live theater (which I’ve seen more than once) is for an actor to pull the trigger and hear a click instead of a bang.
Granted they could just re-shoot a movie scene if this happens, but that costs time & money, which they absolutely hate wasting.
Your idea of using smaller caliber bores, etc. likely wouldn’t prevent this sort of thing because either the quality would again suffer due to the lack of demand, or some idiot would still produce real ammo for it, or at least a projectile firing blank.
Movies like Rust use revolvers because that’s what cowboys would have used. They want the guns to look real, which means the cylinder should look like it has real bullets in them and not blanks, especially in close-up shots where you can clearly see a gun. That’s ultimately what killed Brandon Lee on his movie set. The special effects team botched rigging the bullets so they wouldn’t fire. They removed the powder but didn’t remove the primer cap, and at close range that was still enough to cause trauma when Lee was shot.
I also know a guy with 40+ years in the movie special effects industry who actually writes OSHA safety regulations for the industry. They’re “written in blood” due to events like Brandon Lees death, and when followed properly everybody is safe. He wasn’t involved in any way with the Rust production, but he was extremely pissed when he started hearing what’s been reported. He said it sounds like pretty much everybody involved from the producer on down ignored those regulations, and he had no problem with folks like Baldwin facing charges as a result.
Minor nitpick: the primer in the botched dummy cartridge wasn't enough to fire the bullet, but it was enough to unseat to it from the case and lodge it in the barrel. Later, a normal blank cartridge was fired while the bullet was still stuck in the barrel. The powder in the blank was enough to dislodge the bullet and propel it to lethal velocity.
I work film and am outraged at the dismissal. What a lot of people neglected to grasp is because they were focused on whether or not Baldwin pulled the trigger is that the trigger wasn't completely relevant to the crime.
Even if Baldwin wasn't the one holding the gun, even if was in the hands of a completely different actor, he should have been charged as part of the Producers for failing to provide a safe work environment. When these sort of things happen we should be asking who was in charge of providing a safe environment, were they made aware of the dangers and why didn't they stop them. If you are fronting the money, have creative control and hiring and firing power and are cced on safety issues your crew brings up as concerns it's your duty to make sure your crew is safe... And there were so many red flags on Rust you could have seen them from fucking space. People were leaving the show because they didn't feel safe. Saying a seasoned actor / Producer would have been unaware while not just being on set but directly interfacing with the process is complete ludacris.
We talk about Brandon Lee but we should be talking about Sarah Jones. When she was killed by unsafe choices made by Production three out of four Producers on the project, everyone who could not claim complete perfect ignorance of the choices made, were charged criminally.
This is a sad day for American film labor. Appearantly bosses have no direct liability to keep us safe anymore.
on more than one occasion talk directors out of using prop firearms that fire blanks
That sounds like extremely bad advice.
when followed properly everybody is safe.
Really, these guidelines would have prevented the use of real bullets allegedly mixed in by the prop supplier?
Making prop weapons do not have to be of inferior quality, and your argument that some may make live ammo for them would be extremely illogical if that was illegal.
If you want to use live ammo, what would be the argument for not using a real weapon?
If it's some homemade shit, it would probably be pretty easy to spot anyway.
I stand by my original claim, which would 100% have prevented the incident. Even without training. You cannot reasonably argue that it's safer that an actor should read and learn what 40 years of experience and numerous accidents have taught an expert, that he has written a book about. People make mistakes.
I’m all for additional security measures but they flat out admitted to not checking individual ammunition (blanks, live, and dummie rounds), which already have visual and auditory differentiators. People didn’t take their jobs seriously and a woman is dead because of it, the change needed, regardless of anything else, is ensuring people take the fucking job seriously or everything gets halted on the spot before an accident happens.
I still don't understand why they had live ammunition onset at all. Apparently it was there so they could shoot some Coke cans with the gums afterwards? If that's the real reason she brought them she deserves to go down because that's bloody stupid.
which already have visual and auditory differentiators.
OK that's something. I think if this identification is general, I'd personally check every single round if I was an actor. Both for guns I hold, and guns that are potentially pointed at me.
If that's a problem for the producer, they should get proper prop guns.
This can easily be accomplished by making the prop weapon 1mm smaller, so real bullets can't even be inserted.
You may soon learn about different calibres. Firstly, they exist.
8mm parabellum, 6.62x51, 6.62x39, 4.46x45, 11.7x108...
Are prop guns in other countries as you describe?
Well I don't know the actual regulation, but I have never heard of a weapons accident during filming here in Denmark.
We have stricter regulation on weapons and 100% no movie maker would even dream of using weapons capable of using live ammo.
Although Denmark is a small country, we make way more movies than our size would indicate. But still just a fraction of USA.
I saw some comments on this when it happened and americans were shitting their asses when people suggested just using props, because apparently it takes away the immersion when their favourite shooty weapon doesn't look real enough
Was that immersion for the movie, or for the actors?
Maybe they should try acting like it’s real. Y’know, because they’re actors.
Is the movie still coming out?
lmao
I don't think they finished filming.
That's not exactly surprising - I'm pretty sure a first-year law student would do as much. The real question is will it actually get dismissed. Normally I would suspect not, but we live in the weirdest fucking timeline, so who the hell knows.
Sorry kid. Someone's gotta swing and they weren't ever going to let it be the rich guy.
Fuck yeah, Hollywood getting away with killing an employee.
Remember, she filed a safety complaint against the production precisely because of all this. Alina was a union whistleblower who turned up dead.
I rarely comment, but your statement is factually incorrect on a few points. I assume when you stated "Alina", you are referring to Halyna Hutchins. There were safety complaints filed by other production members, but not by her. The way you framed this statement also implies she may have been killed as retribution because she filed a safety complaint, which again, she did not.
If there is a credible source that the victim in this tragedy filed a safety complaint before her death, I will happily amend or delete my comment. I'm not trying to start a flame war or anything and this is certainly no attack on you personally, it just bothers me when I see misinformation.
Seems like a little more than just Alec Baldwin heading an extraordinarily sloppy production. HG-R still did not do her job but if they both went to prison you'd feel like justice was done knowing evidence like this was withheld?
I don’t particularly think any kind of ballistics on the bullets is really going to change the out come of the trial. They could have easily omitted them and still had a rock-solid case.
Like, Baldwin is not disputing that he was holding the gun that killed her. Just that it was his fault.
HGR, that other producer. Baldwin. They can all share full guilt for what happened.
This case is weird. You have Trumptards wanting Baldwin imprisoned because he mocked Trump once on tv. Then you have bleeding heart leftists who simp for Hannah because muh mysoggyknee, muh classism, muh wimmin never dun nufin wrong. It's a perfect storm of shitty people coming together for a wrong cause.