Alec Baldwin didn’t mean to kill someone. But his actions on the set of Rust were as reckless as they could be, and the reason a woman is dead. People should not defend him.
I’m no particular fan of Alec Baldwin, as an actor or as a man. Speaking with two friends who do background acting (the other people in the restaurant pretending to eat as the primary actors act) both say they have had no direct dealings with him (I won’t go into what they said about Sean Penn, who they did deal with on a set), but Baldwin’s reputation precedes him. He berates people and has a great deal of admiration for himself. Suffice to say, people don’t like working with him.
Last Thursday I caught Court TV’s coverage of the trial of Hannah Gutierrez, the armorer on the set of Rust. She handed the firearms, including the Colt 45 that “just went off” in Baldwin’s hands, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. Court TV had a digital video presentation of the shooting, where Mr. Baldwin, sitting in one of the pews, was practicing a cross draw, pulling his pistol from under his left shoulder. Looking at the video (watch the first minute and fifteen seconds), the two people hit were at approximately Mr. Baldwin’s “One o’clock” position, i.e., a little to Baldwin’s right.
© Court TV
First thing that seems curious (Beside the fact this man-child has access to a firearm without the supervision of a more qualified individual, like my 13-year-old Star Scout nephew. Did I say that?) is why did he pointed it at them at all. From the video, Baldwin was on the left side of the church, the filming crew to his right, but there were multiple pews behind them with no one in front of them. In other words, a much safer place to practice this action.
Second, the audio of the video says, “the gun discharges.” The “gun” discharges. In the immortal words of Dr. Evil, Riiiight.
© Court TV
© Court TV
Another famous actor who forgot more about handing firearms than Mr. Baldwin will ever know is John Wayne. In multiple movies he mentions he keeps the chamber under the hammer empty (5 rounds in a 6-round cylinder) for safety, “So I don’t shoot my foot off.” But that quote was based in fact. Earlier pistol cartridges were often not the highest quality (and the pistols could be problematic), leading to accidental discharges.
That does not apply in this case. Modern cartridges generally do not have an issue with accidental discharges like in the latter parts of the 19th century. I don’t question some private reloads may have that issue, but there were no reloads on the set (from what I’ve been able to read).
Also, the FBI was brought in to examine the pistol (a .45 Colt (.45 Long Colt) caliber F.lli Pietta single-action revolver). Per their inspection, the pistol could not have fired without a pull of the trigger. No, the pistol did not “discharge.” It was fired.
Where am I going with this? Was the deadly conduct in this incident “intentional?” Absolutely not. Was it reckless or negligent? Depending on the which person you’re discussing, without question. I’m just curious why intelligent people I know are defending Alex Baldwin for this shooting.
I have a family member who has no experience with firearms (likely last time he fired a “weapon” was a cap gun before he was 10). The other is a close friend who has extensive knowledge of firearms and we’ve been shooting on many occasions. Both are blaming the armorer more for the shooting, not the man who pulled the trigger. At least one of these men knows very well Rule Number A for handing a weapon, “There is no such thing as an unloaded gun!” You treat them all as locked and loaded, you never point them at another human unless it’s justified and needed, and insure what’s behind your target.
There is no question in my mine, Ms. Gutierrez was negligent in the performance of her duties, i.e., “Failed to exercise a degree of care or caution necessary to protect others from harm.” Which is why she is on trial for Involuntary Manslaughter. One critical failure, under no circumstances should there have been any live ammunition on that set.
I’ve been a cop for over 25 years, a soldier for almost as many, and we don’t mix blanks and live rounds. Every time I take an active shooting course, I had to leave every pistol, knife, even my keys off the training facility. Nothing that could inadvertently injury someone. A few years ago I took a patrol carbine update, during part of the class we would practice running to a target. The bolt in our rifles had to be removed before we could get on the range. You handle it like that because if you don’t, someone could get hurt or killed. And you’re dealing with qualified people, not immature hotheads like Alex Baldwin.
But Mr. Baldwin was worse than Ms. Gutierrez. He was reckless in his actions, engaging in “Behavior that is so careless that it is considered an extreme departure from the care a reasonable person would exercise in similar circumstances.” Multiple reports show the set was unorganized and dysfunctional, and Mr. Baldwin paid little attention to a mandatory safety training:
“The court filing alleges that Baldwin did not show up for pre-filming firearms training session, was inexperienced in the “cross-draw” technique allegedly used when Hutchins was fatally shot, and had been preoccupied with family during filming.
“A training session for at least an hour or more in length was scheduled, but the actual training consisted of only approximately 30 minutes as according to (Gutierrez-Reed), Baldwin was distracted and talking on his cell phone to his family during the training,” Robert Shilling, a special investigator for the Santa Fe district attorney’s office, said in the probable cause statement.
Baldwin also failed to demand safety checks between Gutierrez-Reed and himself to confirm the gun didn’t contain live rounds, prosecutors say.”
“Baldwin’s deviation from known standards, practices and protocol directly caused the fatal death of Hutchins,” Mr Shilling added.
“Failed to demand safety checks?” Perhaps the moron should have learned how to check the pistol himself before handing it. You know, individual responsibility. But responsibility is not something to expect from a Hollywood has been. He had no issue with a Tweet in 2017, lecturing a cop, “I wonder how it must feel to wrongfully kill someone…”
“Failed to demand safety checks to confirm the gun didn’t contain live rounds?” Little Alec, perhaps you should have learned how to do that yourself. When I hand a revolver to someone, the cylinder is popped out and I had it over with my finders through the frame. It cannot fire. A semi-automatic? I will remove the magazine, clear the chamber, rack the upper slide multiple times to insure it’s clear. Then I lock the slide back, and hand it over with the barrel pointed up and the breech oriented to the man I’m handing it to. That way he can see it’s clear It’s called handing a pistol safely. If you had been concerned about this requirement on the set a woman would not be dead. Yes, I said that.
As I get older, I grow less tolerant of hypocritical morons lecturing people on their actions, while excusing their own failure. Paging Alec Baldwin. Both of these people share some responsibility for the tragedy of the Rust shooting. But no question, Alex Baldwin is more at fault than Ms. Gutierrez. If he would have acted with the responsibly of a ten-year-old Cub Scout, this would have never happened. But that’s asking a lot from a D-List celebrity on the downslope of his career.
Michael A. Thiac is a retired Army intelligence officer, with over 23 years experience, including serving in the Republic of Korea, Japan, and the Middle East. He is also a retired police patrol sergeant, with over 22 years’ service, and over ten year’s experience in field training of newly assigned officers. He has been published at The American Thinker, PoliceOne.com, and on his personal blog, A Cop’s Watch.
Opinions expressed are his alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of current or former employers.
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