By Andrew Dalton, AP
The family of a cinematographer shot and killed on the set of the film “Rust” is suing Alec Baldwin and the movie’s producers for wrongful death, their attorneys said Tuesday.
Lawyers for the family of Halyna Hutchins announced the lawsuit filed in New Mexico in the name of Hutchins’ husband, Matthew Hutchins, and their son, Andros, at a Los Angeles news conference.
At least three other lawsuits have been filed over the shooting, but this is the first directly tied to one of the two people shot.
The “reckless conduct and cost-cutting measures” of Baldwin and the film’s producers “led to the death of Halyna Hutchins,” attorney Brian Pannish said.
A video created by the attorneys showed an animated recreation of the shooting.
Baldwin was pointing a gun at Hutchins during the setup for the filming of a scene for the western in New Mexico on Oct. 21 when it went off, killing Hutchins and wounding the director, Joel Souza.
Baldwin has said he was pointing the gun at Hutchins at her instruction and it “went off” without him pulling the trigger.
The attorneys said in the video that Baldwin had turned down training for the kind of gun draw he was doing when he shot Hutchins.
It said industry standards call for using a rubber or similar prop gun during the setup that was happening, and there was no call for a real gun.
Last month, nearly three months after the shooting, Baldwin turned over his cellphone to authorities in his home state of New York. They gathered information from the phone and provided it to Santa Fe County investigators, who had obtained a warrant for it.
Investigators have described “some complacency” in how weapons were handled on the “Rust” set. They have said it is too soon to determine whether charges will be filed.
Baldwin said he does not believe he will be criminally charged in the shooting.
The film’s script supervisor and its lead camera operator, both of whom were standing a few feet away when Hutchins was shot, each filed a lawsuit over the trauma they went through.
And the film’s armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed, who was named as a defendant in those lawsuits and blamed by some for the shooting, filed her own suit saying an ammunition supplier created dangerous conditions by including live ammunition in a box that was supposed to include only dummy rounds.
In an interview with ABC News in December, Baldwin said he felt incredible sadness over the the shooting, but not guilt.
“Someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but it’s not me,” Baldwin said.
He said Hutchins had asked him to point the gun just off camera and toward her armpit before it went off.
“I didn’t pull the trigger,” Baldwin said. “I would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger at them. Never.”
He called Hutchins “somebody who was loved by everybody and admired by everybody who worked with her.”
Hutchins, 42, grew up on a remote Soviet military base and worked on documentary films in Eastern Europe before studying film in Los Angeles and embarking on a promising movie-making career.
On her Instagram page, Hutchins identified herself as a “restless dreamer” and “adrenaline junkie.”
In a 2019 interview with American Cinematographer, which named her one of the year’s rising stars, she described herself as an “army brat” drawn to movies because “there wasn’t that much to do outside.” She would document herself parachuting and exploring caves, among other adventures, and through her work with British filmmakers, became “fascinated with storytelling based on real characters.”
It was a mystery shooter on the grassy knoll. Baldwin would never point a gun at a person and pull the trigger.
Wonder what would happen to any of us in the same situation?
He had his damn finger on the trigger!!! He may not have ‘pulled’ it but his finger was fondling it.
Sure looks like single action, any mention of who cocked it?
Moderation? You’re kidding!
Larry, yours at least had a word that contains an intimidating word that triggers such leftist programs as moderating everything. Mine are constantly in jail and only contain words like; guns, rifles, shooting, gear, ammo, dacian sucks, and so on. It’s getting ridiculous. Buy hey, gotta keep up with the times, I guess.
Well I know I’d be sitting in a jail cell waiting on the trial . Then I’d be put in gin pop ( no dont get happy stupid possum, that’s general population) ,, but I’m sure I heard gin pop.
Drowning my sorrows for 25 years.
Well for starters I imagine our phone would be taken from us as we were immediately handcuffed and pushed into the back of a patrol car. Then we would sit in a jail cell for months while an investigation into the half dozen or better criminal charges laid against us was conducted by the ‘proper authorities’. And throughout all of this the media would vilify us as The Gunman™ over and over again, all as if from the exact same script, using a military style assault revolver, doing their damndest to sway public, judge and jury opinion against all gun owners and eventually, under the guise of Public Safety™, calling for a halt to the proliferation of high capacity cylinders that fire high caliber magazines all on their own. Or something. Then we would fry. I mean… it’s just Common Gun Sense™, right?
Single Action ARMY. The name screams evil weapon of war.
@jwm and Rider/Shooter
Thank you for the Wednesday morning chuckle!
Seriously, your comments are spot-on regarding the Liberal mindset and the unequal and biased application of Law in this particular manslaughter case.
👀😱😫😭. I give you: The Progressive Liberal.
This is not even worth posting. He should have check the weapon. After checking the weapon, said weapon is still consider loaded.
Geez Louize :-\
This is news? Everyone knew it was coming.
Took a bit longer than I expected, tho.
“when it went off”
Would you STOP parroting the antigun morons at AP?
Colt SAAs are hard to fire accidentally. Pulling back the hammer and releasing (before the half-cock notch) is reached does not have enough force to fire the cartridge. Pulling the hammer back to the half-cock effectively locks the action. The only way to unlock is to pull the hammer back to full-cock.
I’m not saying accidents can’t happen but I think Baldwin is trying to blame someone else for his reckless incompetence.
There’s a catch to that, of course.
A brand-new, perfectly-set-up, precision-fitted Colt SAA of the original design, with just the right depth of loading notch, half-cock notch, and full-cock notch on the hammer and just the right tempering, cut, and angle on the trigger nose (‘sear’), and the right strength and bend on the trigger spring, with the main spring set ‘just so’ so that it’s not too strong and not too loose, may do what you say virtually every time. The trigger nose/sear may slip properly into the half-cock ‘safety’ notch as it travels on the hammer’s curved ‘cam’ surface, and stop the hammer from falling. On the other hand, it MAY just skip over that notch, and over the tiny, shallow ‘loading’ notch, and hit a primer.
That precisely fitted, precisely hardened trigger ‘sear’ may snap under the load entering the notch, and the hammer may fall onto the primer. The trigger return spring may be too weak to keep the trigger ‘sear’ against the breast of the hammer, making it miss both notches and allowing the hammer to fall.
A poorly-made replica, or even a good one, also without a hammer block to upgrade it, can do all of those things as well.
Or an ignorant person playing with a very primitive, grossly unsafe early firearm design while not knowing of its limitations, nor how to use it safely, can thumb back the hammer with his finger on the trigger, and negligently fire the gun while trying to decock it.
It’s still solely the fault of Arec Barwin the Worfress that someone died.
Yeah, frustrating in the extreme. It should more properly read: “as the suspect inarguably and negligently both aimed the unchecked weapon at the victim and pulled the trigger causing the weapon to fire not only a live round instead of a blank, but a live round loaded into a revolving cylinder so as to be the very next cartridge presented as the hammer was cocked”. Fat chance of us ever hearing them say that though.
Never mind alec baldwin et al just sue the firearm manufacturer like the Witch Hunters sued Remington in connecticut.
There yah go.
I remember one of JFK’s speeches, he said America would become a land of sue’ers, the media misinterpreted it as sewers , either way he was right.
Lawyers for the family of Halyna Hutchins announced the lawsuit filed in New Mexico……at a Los Angeles news conference.
Ah yes, ye olde ‘news conference’ for a lawsuit. That says everything one needs to know about everyone involved, everyone that’s getting involved, and everything that will come from it.
Attorneys are whores, but they are not stupid whores; They are very smart, skilled whores who are well-paid to provide the pleasure of winning to their clients. They know full well that a case is easier to win if it’s tried in The Media before a jury is ever empanelled. It’s their job to make their chances of winning as large as possible with a minimum of fuss.
If you ever need an attorney, then look for one with a history of being a very good whore.
Attorneys also know that some trials can be rigged by having the Court Clerk fill the jury pool with solid loyal party members. Can’t do it on every trial but if the money is there it can happen.
I’ve been shooting, collecting, and repairing firearms since I was a child. Guns don’t “go off” without being manipulated by whoever is holding the gun. When Baldwin pulled the hammer back and let it go that was what caused the gun to fire. The hammer of single action revolvers have three notches, one for full cock, a safety notch to catch a slipped hammer and a notch to hold the hammer off of the back of the cylinder. What Baldwin claimed happened is an impossibility unless the firearm was broken. And at any rate Baldwin had the responsibility of checking the gun to make sure it was a functioning example. Baldwin failed to do his job and someone died as a result. He doesn’t feel guilt because he’s never taken responsibility for anything he’s done. He’s a killer, regardless of whatever excuse he is using.
A lot of Baldwin should have checked the gunm.
I dont know but if a prop guy hands me a gunm I dont know as if I could start monkeying around with it legally?
I put the blame on the person who handed the gunm to him .
Also to blame, but did not pull the trigger, as Baldwin certainly did.
Harell Coley said “Guns don’t “go off” without being manipulated by whoever is holding the gun. ”
Mostly true. However, some cheaper, poorly designed guns have “gone off” when no finger was near the trigger. My brother and I destroyed a crap Japanese rifle when we were young, to ensure that it would never accidentally fire again.
While I mostly agree with you, we should avoid overly broad statements.
The gun was a reproduction, either Uberti or Pieta. I’ve owned both. They are not poorly made.
No, they aren’t, but they ARE, just as are the originals, extremely primitive, simple machines that do not suffer fools. In their original form, they have no effective, reliable ‘safeties,’ and rely completely upon the intelligence and savvy of the one handling them to not screw up horribly. They are, however, due to that simplicity, extremely reliable for what they are supposed to do: Fire a lead projectile at high speed out the muzzle with considerable force.
The one that Arec Barwin The Worfress used to kill his cinematographer worked just FINE in that regard.
Well, he is an actor. He makes a pretty good living being paid to lie. This is simply just another role.
Exactly. Actors get paid to pretend to be things they’re not.
Poor, poor Alec. I doubt that he will ever recover from actually being everything he falsely accused us of being.
If anything, I hope it shuts his yap up about us for a good long while.
In the highly unlikely chance I ever run across him on down the road, I will ask him what it feels like to take someone’s life, like he hatefully spewed at someone on Twitter once…
I seriously hope you get that chance. I can’t help but think this was straight up intentional homicide and the a$$hole is now playing his ‘biggest role ever’…
We will need video, just to see his outrage
There will be large private settlement with a non-disclosure because of the double standard for regular people vs the elite liberal leftist and Mr. Baldwin will not see a minute of jail time even on the outside chance he is arrested and or convicted of negligent homicide for which he apparently is guilty of.
If you dont know sht about gunms, dont know how it works, and then I hand you a gunm which your supposed to fake shoot someone with and I tell you its safe, and it goes off and kills somebody, who’s fault is that?
I dont like Alex Baldwin however he is not the one to blame on that.
@possum: How many movies has Mr. Baldwin made handling a gun? More than this one. Also you forget, he’s the producer, hence everything that happen on the set is his responsibility. He pulled the trigger, he is responsible, there maybe others involved also, but it all falls on him.
Putting it like that, it would be wrong to hold the actor liable. I haven’t followed this case too close, so there may be other details, like being the producer as mentioned by MB (I assume the real MB).
The ironic thing is, if Alec was a gun guy, he would have double checked the gun himself before pointing it at anyone.
If the plaintiffs’ lawyers are competent, they will point out that the Screen Actors Guild protocol for handling firearms on a movie set prohibits pointing a gun at a person even when the script calls for it. The actor holding the gun is supposed to aim to the side of his target so that, if everything else has failed and the gun fires a real bullet, it will be a near miss. That alone should be enough to sink him in court. The lawsuits are being filed in New Mexico which, despite voting Democratic, isn’t anti-gun like the northeast or California. New Mexicans have enough familiarity with firearms that it will be hard for Baldwin’s lawyers to bamboozle them.
“I didn’t do it”…sez the producer of this failed film. The producer IS responsible for what happens on set. It ain’t the buck stops near…it helps to have a gorgeous actress wife who was a SAG member😎
Sue the dick into bankruptcy,
He deserves it, guns don’t go off by themselves.
He’s a big shot, so I expect him to get off light.
Personally, I hope he gets jail time & his movie career gets destroyed.
No LGS has dummy rounds like that here. I haven’t even seen them at Midway or Brownells. Is that just a movie thing? I don’t even think I’ve seen a YouTube video using them. They look easy enough to make but that caught my attention.
Prndll
Friends have a movie prop business including real firearms.
Proper dummy rounds for a movie have an inert primer, no powder with a small ball bearing inside so you can hear it rattle and a real projectile. Made so you can show actors loading guns etc.
I’m guessing for a budget production someone got something cheap or used real rounds.
I gathered as much from the video. When doing a search for that type of dummy, I’m coming across some info including someone that made them themselves. This looks like what might have been done before plastics, rubber, and machined aluminum started getting used. I have snap caps and have used spent .22lr cases. Doing it this way just never came to mind.
The redundancies on a dummy round ensures their safety. Even with a primer and powder, with a hole in the side, when fired, the projectile will only lodge where the forcing cone meets the rifling.
No hole in the case, consider it a live round. Mr. Big Shot producer just couldn’t be bothered to check what he held in his hand.
I hope HollyWeird adopts a policy of actors personally inspecting the ammunition on firearms they are handed, when humans are downrange…
“Baldwin was pointing a gun at Hutchins during the setup for the filming of a scene for the western in New Mexico on Oct. 21 when it went off, killing Hutchins and wounding the director, Joel Souza… “Someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but it’s not me,” Baldwin said.”
“Went off”? Really? That’s not generally a thing with firearms. And Mr. Baldwin isn’t responsible for what his booger hook does? Really. Well, OK. If that’s the case, the solution should probably be just to surgically remove the digit in question. I humbly suggest that the surgeon should make the incision at the neck. That way, we won’t have to worry about any of Alec Baldwin’s other body parts getting out of hand, either. Problem solved.
I’VE BEEN TOLD / TAUGHT NEVER POINT A WEAPON AT ANYTHING YOU DON’T WANT TO SHOOT . ONCE YOU PULL THE TRIGGER YOU CAN’T TAKE IT BACK. PERIOD .
STAY SAFE AND ALERT BEST Y’ALL CAN
“Someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but it’s not me,” Baldwin said.
Case CLOSED, dacian!
If an ordinary person (not the Hollywood elite) tried this defense, how far would it get them?
“Someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but it’s not me,” Baldwin said.
That’s like a bank robber saying, “Someone is responsible for killing the bank guard, and I can’t say who it is, but it’s not me, even though the gun was in my hand, I pointed it at the bank guard, and it fired.”
The Attorney did an excellent job of explaining aspects of the movie industry safety protocols that should enable actors to violate the normal, Four Rules of Gun Safety that we peons obey without killing anyone. Baldwin violated not just the normal Four Rules of Gun Safety but the far more permissive protocols of the movie industry. He screwed up and he knows it.
fun fact:
when she died
halyna hutchins was married to a lawyer
that works for the same law firm
thats defending the guy
that got indicted
in the durham probe
who worked for the law firm
that hillary clintons election campaign hired
to help defeat trump in the 2016 election
the chances of it being a complete coincidence
that the only person shot and killed on a movie
set last year
is also connected to the same man
who got indicted in a criminal probe
and is in a position to bury hillary clinton:
one hundred thousand trillion to one
The good news is, the Leftist Scum are about to personally throw the HildaBeast under the bus for spying on the Trump campaign and White House.
They are scared sh!tless she wants to run, and if it takes her getting prosecuted, they’ll do it…
Umm, no. Her husband works for Latham Watkins. The guy indicted by Durham, Michael Sussman, works for Perkins Coie. Your Google Fu sucks. Hutchins is an entertainment industry attorney, Sussman is a cybersecurity lawyer.
Devil… details.
Now I know who starts conspiracies
The single action colt style revolvers I have all have very light, perhaps 2 lb triggers. If you have your thumb on the hammer, taking pressure off the sear (which is simply an extension off the top of the trigger), it is easy to pull the trigger without necessarily recognizing that you’ve done so. I’ve read that Alex said that he took his thumb off the hammer and the gun “just fired.” So that shows that he did not lower the hammer as most would do, and that the trigger had been pulled. There was no mechanical defect here, just a mental one.
Very good news. This asshole is as guilty as Hillary. They should ask for 73 million.
He should be sentenced to cleaning Hillary’s colostomy bag for the rest of his stupid life.
Just me on this. I don’t care if Jesus Christ hands me a pistol and says it’s safe. I’m still going to check the weapon.
Likely what happened is Baldwin, like many novices, or non gun types, drew the weapon with his finger inside the trigger guard and on the trigger. Thumbed the hammer back and let it drop. Resulted in a negligent discharge killing the cinematographer and wounding the director.
Because he neglected to learn proper handling and neglected to inspect the weapon before holstering it, he is responsible for the negligent discharge. Unintentional manslaughter, or negligent homicide would be the appropriate charge. As well as a nice settlement for the victims for wrongful death, and him being an idiot.
Same, Oldmanimal (sorry, couldn’t resist), but I think it’s more involved than that; the live ammo being not only present where non should be but then one live round being loaded not only into a cylinder of (very different) blanks by whoever was ‘responsible’ but that round also being loaded into the one particular chamber next up to bat? I mean, what are the odds against that; 6-1 or something? Consider: if we start with an empty cylinder then either “load one/skip one” or load all six rounds then there is zero possibility that the ‘responsible’ person could fail to notice the intentional physical differences between the different type of rounds, i.e.: it must’ve been deliberate, especially with the ‘next up to bat’ factor. Given all the particulars and the failure to follow long mandated procedures on set, etc, it all begins to add up to pretty big heap o circumstances, and I ain’t buying any of what they’re trying to sell. These people literally lie for a living.
Guilty!
Interesting post from the 1911 forum:
“There have been multiple experiments online with the same model of Colt SAA (clone, Uberti I think?) that shows the half cock stops the simply pulling and dropping the hammer defense from being true. If you don’t go to the half cock you don’t have the power, if you go past it just stops at the half clock.
You need the trigger pulled to make it happen, but the same experiments have shown you sure don’t need much pressure on the trigger while dropping the hammer to disengage the half cock and go bang. It’s probably what happened, he didn’t realize he had some pressure on the trigger when he let the hammer go.
Reading through some of the civil cases against him and others, he’s got some real problems there so that should be more interesting as I don’t see a criminal case going anywhere. Scum bag as he is, this does seem to be an accident.“
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