Rust trial testimony is getting genuinely, upsettingly intense
Dave Halls, who pled guilty to negligent use of a deadly weapon in the Rust shooting, testified that he heard Halyna Hutchins say "I can't feel my legs"
Aux News Rust
The trial of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed—armorer on the low budget Western Rust, and now facing charges of involuntary manslaughter for the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the film’s set—reached what appeared to be a new plateau of intensity today, when the movie’s first assistant director, Dave Halls, took the stand as a witness. Halls is, so far, the only person to have faced any legal repercussions for Hutchins’ death, having received six months of probation and a $500 fine after pleading guilty to negligent use of a deadly weapon; today, he broke down in tears on the stand as he described the events of the cinematographers’ death.
Per Variety, Halls—who has now retired from the industry, and whose job on the film’s set included overall responsibility for safety—denied allegations that he was the person who handed the gun to Alec Baldwin on the day of the shooting, saying that, while he admitted to failing to fully check the weapon for live rounds, he never actually handled the weapon. He testified that he was three feet away from Hutchins when the weapon went off, and heard her say “I can’t feel my legs” before EMTs arrived.
Halls also painted a slightly odd picture of Gutierrez-Reed, simultaneously “diligent,” “confident,” and “knowledgeable,” while also indicating her as the direct cause of Hutchins’ death; this lines up roughly with the prosecution strategy in the case, which has struggled at times to reconcile Gutierrez-Reed’s responsibility for the events of the shooting with the defense’s own assertions that she was a relatively powerless member of the crew, being pushed around and bullied away from properly doing her job by aggressive stars and producers.
(That argument was also at the crux of state expert Bryan Carpenter’s testimony on Thursday; while acknowledging defense assertions that a gun-heavy production such as Rust should have had two armorers on set, rather than the part-time position Gutierrez-Reed was working—and that Baldwin was behaving unsafely with a gun in video footage shown during the trial—Carpenter asserted that, ultimately, gun safety on the set was her responsibility. “If that is not something you feel capable of doing, you should never step into the position of doing it,” Carpenter said, after watching a video clip in which Gutierrez-Reed appears to try adjusting on-set behavior without directly confronting Baldwin. “You have to be prepared to go home.”)
Gutierrez-Reed’s trial is expected to wrap up on March 8. Baldwin’s own pending trial on similar charges will take place later this year.
64 Comments
She is going to be found guilty and get at least 2 years.Baldwin is going to be found guilty to get the Juicy smollet treatment .There should be a few guilty more too like every other producer and on set manager .Per 60 minutes Australia .They knew there were problems they knew she was not up to the job and they even went to get a new armorer but didn’t want to pay up ? Fuck the lot of them !
They had to wait for EMT’s ????
Using real guns ,in the middle of no where , thy already had accidental discharges and an ambulance was not parked on the set ?No wonder crew people walked !
You probably are not wrongThe fact is no one should be going to jail for this. It was an accident. No one is going to “learn their lesson” in prison for this. Baldwin and the bosses involved should be forced to pay out the butt to the family and in fines for this so maybe they learn a lesson the only way they can(in the bank account). The Armorer probably should never work again in the industry but sending her to prison does no one any good and I doubt she has the deep pockets the bosses do so taking her money would just be cruel. I think just having her names in public as the armorer on set is punishment enough(not to mention the guilt of getting someone killed), she has honestly suffered enough imho.
How is it an accident that bullets ended up in a gun? Did they wander off from a gun shop, hitch a ride on a whim to a rando film set, and just hop into a gun that just happened to be in use that day?
Are you implying someone intentionally loaded the gun with a real bullet in order to kill a cinematographer?
There are a lot of crimes that don’t require specific intent.
Sending her to prison does good as a cautionary tale for everyone who works on future productions featuring guns.
“No one is going to ‘learn their lesson’ in prison for this.”But future armorers and producers will think twice about skimping on this responsibility if they know they’d face a real consequence.
Yes people need to go to jail for this it is criminally negligent murder . There was a clear problem that could easily lead to death and they knowing and willfully didn’t do a damn thing to prevent it ,TO SAVE MONEY .
More people should face consequences, but there are more guilty parties than our legal system is equipped to handle. She was definitely liable, obviously she was given too many responsibilities but she endangered the situation further by consuming multiple mind-altering substances while working that incredibly dangerous job, as well as (seemingly) introducing the live round onto set. Not sure if Baldwin should be liable – if it is, it would be as producer, though I’m not sure of how extensive his abilities as producer were. If he was deciding where to allocate funds and that stuff, totally. If it was just in a ‘he helped get the movie funded then stepped to the side’ way, probably not. Same goes for the other producers – depending on how responsible they were for actually deciding that the armorer should also be the props person, they should be charged.
Seems most people are coming to the same conclusion regardless of how they feel about Baldwin. As an actor on set, it should never occur to you that someone being paid to handle prop weapons would allow a live round to find its way into the equation. I don’t know enough about producers’ explicit responsibilities to form an educated opinion on what criminal liability there might be, but hiring someone who then didn’t do the job right seems like a stretch in general. You wouldn’t see that in any other industry.
Yeah I have no opinion on whether Baldwin should be liable. It’s too fact-specific and has a lot to do with the producer’s role on the set, which I know nothing about. But beyond that, I feel like you as a person have the right to two things—you have the right to believe what people tell you (within reason) and you have the right to believe that people will be competent at their jobs.Now there is such a thing as negligent hiring, and negligent supervision and all that, but those are generally civil cases with a much lower burden of proof. Here in this criminal case, assuming she came in with decent credentials and experience, the producers should have been able to believe that at the minimum she knew the difference between blank and live rounds.
Wait. You read this story—the one with the headline “Rust’ Set Footage Shows Alec Baldwin Rushing the Crew, Saying: ‘One More! Right Away! Let’s Reload!’” …and paragraphs like this one describing outtakes that reveal the environment on the set: “Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the film’s 24-year-old armorer, hurried to put more blanks into his gun. Baldwin was visibly impatient. ‘Here we go! C’mon,’ he said. “’We should have two guns and both we’re reloading.’”…and an expert witness for the prosecution singling out Baldwin in those same outtakes using prop guns to point at things on set, and you don’t mention Baldwin once? I like Baldwin probably a little more than most around here, and even I was like “Oh shit. He might be fucked” after reading that.https://variety.com/2024/film/news/rust-trial-alec-baldwin-rushing-behind-the-scenes-videos-1235926701/
Certainly he loses any credibility as to being Mr. Safety First, but it seems to me there should still be space for telling people to hurry up within certain limits that are so obvious they can be taken as given, for instance, “we should have two guns that we’re constantly reloading [with blanks as opposed to live rounds which shouldn’t even exist on set.]”Or, to rephrase, it sounds like there was negligence and poor practice on his part (obviously pointing the gun at shit like it’s a laser pointer is extremely dumb), but I don’t think that corresponds to the same level of liability as putting real rounds into a prop gun on a movie set.
The moments when Baldwin acted unsafely also aren’t directly related to the incident. Unless they can prove in that moment he wasn’t doing what he was supposed to, the fact that he was generally a dick about it will likely mean nothing.
It does strike me that the prosecution is trying to convict the armorer and lay the groundwork for their eventual prosecution of Baldwin in equal measure here.
Am I missing something? I don’t see any criminal behavior here? I’m curious what you perceive to be wrong here? He was impatient?
Baldwin made hurty feelings and must pay no matter what it costs the dead woman.
I don’t see that it would cost Hutchins anything either.
“He said reload! he pointed the gun around! he should go to jail for murder!”IT’S A PROP GUN THAT’S SUPPOSED TO HAVE BLANKS you unbelievable idiots.
Even blanks can kill people in the poorest of circumstances. Gun safety is the same whether it’s loaded with blanks, bullets, or completely unloaded.
It wasn’t to even supposed to have blanks in it. For a movie’s purpose, blanks are “live” rounds. The gun was supposed to have inert dummy bullets in it so the revolver looked loaded in closeups. Hence all the “cold” gun language.
Clearly it was not a prop gun and clearly it was not loaded with blanks. This is why movie gun safety 101 is to treat every gun like its real and loaded. Any shot that is being performed where someone has to hold a gun to someone else should be carefully monitored and controlled. This clearly was not the case here. There is also some pretty damning evidence that someone may have tried to cover up some aspect of this case, especially around why live rounds would have been on premise in the first place, let alone loaded into a gun used for the filmI am not saying Baldwin should go to jail for murder, this was clearly an accident and putting people in prison over this is silly. But I do think he, as producer, should be held accountable financially at least.
“But I do think he, as producer, should be held accountable financially at least.”This is why all seven producers were indicted.Except they weren’t, so we know that isn’t why the one particular producer was indicted.
I think guns have no place in our society and we’d all be better off without them, but even I know that proper gun safety STARTS with treating every gun like it’s loaded. And this one was.Some people would choose to learn from this. Will you?
while acknowledging defense assertions that a gun-heavy production such as Rust should have had two armorers on set, rather than the part-time position Gutierrez-Reed was working … Carpenter asserted that, ultimately, gun safety on the set was her responsibility. “If that is not something you feel capable of doing, you should never step into the position of doing it,”IMO it’s worth pointing out again that, according to text messages and emails, the producers complained that she was focusing too much on her gun safety responsibilities and not enough on her prop assisting responsibilities.
That’s an Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer-level defense though. “Your honor, my client was so underqualified for the job she accepted that she can’t possibly be guilty of negligence!”
It’s not a defense; it’s a fact. I think more people are criminally culpable than just her.ETA: What I wrote doesn’t even have anything to do with her qualifications or lack thereof. They hired her specifically to as both an armorer and a prop assistant to save money. Like I said in another comment, it would be like hiring someone as both a medic and a crafty assistant. One role is clearly more important than the other.
I see people who might have made an accident more likely, but only indirectly. Which I don’t see rising to the level of criminal culpability.
That’s true; my “criminally culpable” comment was overzealous. I still believe two things can be true: Gutierrez-Reed WAS negligent and responsible for her actions… and the producers’ penny-pinching and disregard for safety standards all but ensured an accident would happen.I mean, if someone was hired to be a pilot and a flight attendant for the same flight, and the airline complained that the pilot was spending too much time in the cockpit and not enough time serving beverages, and then the plane crashed, should we really not punish the airline somehow?
“I mean, if someone was hired to be a pilot and a flight attendant for the same flight, and the airline complained that the pilot was spending too much time in the cockpit and not enough time serving beverages, and then the plane crashed, should we really not punish the airline somehow?Would that be Baldwin in this scenario? That’s a question not an argument. Who would be the responsible parties? Baldwin and the other producers?
It would be the producers, specifically the ones who approved eliminating the budget line item for hiring a full-time armorer and essentially rolling the responsibilities into the prop assistant role. There should be an e-trail if not actual signatures on the budget of the people who approved it, and if Baldwin was one of them, yeah, he would be a responsible party IMO. I don’t believe that will happen, but I think that would be the just thing to do. There are even emails and text messages that show the line producer, Gabrielle Pickle, reprimanding Gutierrez-Reed for spending too much time on her safety duties and not enough on her prop assistant duties. If that’s not proof of telling someone, “Be more negligent,” I don’t know what is. And it turns out, she has a history of anti-labor practices:https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/rust-line-producer-labor-violation-1235038353/amp/IMO the people that haven’t been charged but have a history of ignoring safety standards on sets should be constantly being brought up.
That’s the kind of case Jack McCoy would pursue. He once prosecuted gun manufacturers for specifically making guns that were easy to modify from semi-automatic to automatic.Yes, I realize he is a fictitious person. But this is the kind of thing a state attorney general’s office could choose to pursue if it were a large-scale issue.
Yeah, my general take is a whole lot of people on this project didn’t know what the hell they were doing. I don’t think that makes it a criminal act beyond the person on trial here who was obviously negligent, but the civil side is going to be a totally different story.
I never handled it but handed it to the person (who shot someone) without checking it. Huh? Contradicts self.
I agree that being an armorer on set is a huge responsibility and one that requires someone being willing to walk away if people are not following safety procedures.BUT I think then it makes me wonder how a 24 year old ends up in that job with no support. I don’t expect a lot of young people looking to get a break in Hollywood and working with big names like Baldwin are going to be 1. Respected enough in their expertise by others on set to be listened to and 2. As a result of 1, will be especially prone to being bullied and manipulated. I put up with a lot of workplace bullshit in my 20s that, now that I have more experience and knowledge, I would never put up with now.
The film was originally budgeted to have a full-time armorer, but to save money the producers combined that job with a prop assistant role. My understanding is that the new budget called for whoever they hired to be paid the hourly rate for an armorer half the time (not sure if week or day) and the prop assistant rate for the rest. Understandably, no experienced armorer would take a job that pays them less than what they should be making while still expecting them to fulfill responsibilities that, as we can all see, required their full attention. And it’s not like the producers were fine with getting a full time armorer to work for a less-than-full-time rate; the line producer scolded her for neglecting her prop assistant duties. It’s like hiring a medic/crafty and telling them, “You’re spending too much time treating people for dehydration and not enough time restocking the Nutrigrain bars.”FWIW though, Gutierrez-Reed’s dad was an industry veteran (and an armorer too, I believe), which is probably both a big reason why she in particular got the job and why she wasn’t given support. They probably thought she knew what she was doing. Frankly, to me it sounds like she DID know what she was doing, but where someone 10-20 years older would have the experience to know to quit (or not take the job in the first place), she didn’t. She also may have been the one responsible for live ammo being on set, which is incredibly negligent, and IMO she does deserve to be prosecuted for her specific role in the tragedy.
They probably thought she knew what she was doing. Frankly, to me it sounds like she DID know what she was doing, but where someone 10-20 years older would have the experience to know to quit (or not take the job in the first place), she didn’t.this is what gets me — when the job involved risk of death, it seems like you should have some sort of requirement for practiced experience so that things like this don’t happen. Sort of like how you need to complete a certain number of clinical/practice hours to be a nurse or EMT or doctor or pilot. I feel like Gutierrez-Reed is less at fault than the shitty industry standards that allowed her to be in that position.
I mostly agree, but part of the issue is that the industry standards work when they’re followed. Accidents happen when the crew is rushing and ignores those standards, like hiring two full-time armorers for a production like Rust.
She most assuredly did *not* know what she was doing. All indications were that she was far too green. My client and longtime friend testified earlier this week, so I am constrained in saying more.
I’ll happily defer to your client/friend’s knowledge. I could be completely wrong, but I get the impression that the producers are trying to paint a picture of a young woman being given a fair shot at a high-responsibility role that she couldn’t handle, therefore she somehow misrepresented herself to the producers to get the job. Alternatively, I think the prosecution wants to paint her as so obviously incompetent on set that Alec Baldwin was negligent for not replacing her, ignoring the fact that for the amount of money they were offering, anyone they hired probably wouldn’t have been qualified for the role (and that it wasn’t Baldwin’s responsibility to find a replacement).
I wonder if a Gutierrez-Reed level armorer isn’t the norm on lower budget films but they’ve just been mostly lucky up to now.
My thought exactly. The main question to me is how the hell live rounds ever made it anywhere near the set, and who was explicitly responsible for checking the weapon before handing it to Baldwin. Not who “should have,” but who by rule was required to do so (Gutierrez-Reed, I have to think).
What I Wanna Know: The Property Master Called The Guy Who Supplied The Guns And Ammo, (Except For 2 Boxes Apparently From Guteriezes Dad), & Then Collected & ‘Threw Away’ (Where? In What Receptacle?) Some Dummy Rounds From The Cart, & Who Knows What Else & The Cops Sure Did Not Handle That Entire Place As A Crime Scene. That Kenny Guy Might Be A Trumper, For All We Know.
As much as I hate the idea of yelling “nepo baby” for everyone who has ever gotten a job from knowing or being related to someone(I got my internship that led to my first career job because my Dad knew some people so I can’t judget), in this case it was clear her Dad got her a job she may have not be qualified to do.
It still seems to me that when the job involves actual risk of death, “qualified” needs to be more highly regulated.
Absolutely and if this was a union production it would have been. The producers were doing this cheap and using non-union staff outside of California to “save cost” and that ended with someone dead
A knowledgeable but unempowered and overextended professional will always fail. Armors are life-and-death positions. Producers who skimp on such a role are directly responsible for whatever happens.
What a genuinely, upsettingly asinine headline. “Ah, man, I know we want all the juicy details about this scandal involving someone getting shot to death on a movie set, but this shit’s starting to get kinda heavy. Drag.”
What if they found out Boeing was underpaying under qualified inspectors, and giving them extra work, and bullying them and basically making it impossible to do their job and as a result somebody gets sucked out of a plane and killed because of a major safety issue.Can those inspectors be found criminally liable for not quitting?I honestly don’t know the legal answer.
In this case, we’re talking about a plane that wasn’t intended to leave the ground. Where did the live rounds come from??
Where did the live rounds come from??All I can think of would be some psycho loose on set, or the prop ammo supplier accidentally got some live ammo mixed in with the prop ammo.I don’t see how a crew member could accidentally bring in the proper kind of live ammo that got mixed in the way it did.
There were rumors of the crew doing some after hours target shooting or something, but I think that’s been debunked.
I’d heard that rumor as well. Even though I subscribe to the philosophy that you’ll never be disappointed underestimating the intelligence of the average person, that one seemed beyond the range of any reasonable behavior.
Some psycho loose on set seems far less likely than someone just being bad at their job.
Yeah, I’m waiting for the prop gun/ammo vendor to testify.If he’s ever had live ammo anywhere in his shop, that seems like the likeliest place it got mixed into the prop ammo.
I agree, since everyone is claiming it was supposed to be a cold gun, that means the bullets look like real rounds except for a dimple on the primer. If she is new, and she didn’t know to look, I could see how it could been the ammo supplier since they also usually sell real bullets as well
They wouldn’t be found criminally liable for not quitting, but they could potentially be found guilty for taking on a duty of care and not fulfilling it.
I still don’t see, haven’t read, or can’t understand the need for ever having LIVE AMMUNITION at a movie shoot? Like, outside of a police station, military base, or shooting range, why would there be live ammunition anywhere? The person who introduced that to the equation, imo, is the one who should be held the most accountable. Not everyone knows about guns, bullets, blanks vs live, dummy vs real, etc. but a person bringing real bullets anywhere knows what they are for and what not to do with them.
And Walmart. Don’t forget, they sell it at Walmart.
Who actually hires people for a movie set?A producer? The director? Some combination? A subcontractor thing?
It depends. The majority of below-the-line crew members are hired by department heads, though all the employment paperwork will typically be signed by the line producer and the unit production manager. I believe armorers fall under the prop department, so the prop master would probably hire them. Since not every production has an armorer though, it’s possible that someone else found or recommended Gutierrez-Reed either to the prop master or directly to the line producer.The other producers and/or the director might have an opinion about who gets hired, and I’m sure they ask department heads to hire their nephews all the time, but it’s generally not their responsibility.
I just want to to know when the movie is getting released.
Never
In a nutshell: All the men agreed that the young woman they didn’t take seriously is at fault for not making them take her seriously. Also, the responsible act on her part would have been to quit, because that would totally make her look responsible and not in any way like she wasn’t up to working in the industry.
Carpenter asserted that, ultimately, gun safety on the set was her responsibility.This is frankly the crux of all of it. It was her responsibility. If someone is acting unsafely, you deal with it or you escalate it. To be honest, if she’s found to have not talked to Baldwin about his behavior, Baldwin will have a defense that he didn’t know and assumed the armorer would correct him.