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Involuntary Manslaughter Charges to TV Redemption With "The Baldwins" · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. How did Hollywood megastar Alec
0:11
Speaker 1: Baldwin's shooting death a cinematographer a young mom seemingly disappear
0:20
Speaker 1: off the radar without a blip. He then went on
0:23
Speaker 1: to start in a reality show with his very large family,
0:29
Speaker 1: according to many as some sort of a rehabilitation pr stunt.
0:37
Speaker 1: But has Alec Baldwin's redemption reality show backfired? I Nancy Grace,
0:45
Speaker 1: this is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.
0:49
Speaker 1: According to TV pundits, a reality show, the ingredients being
0:55
Speaker 1: one famous movie star dad, a glamorous, much younger mother
1:02
Speaker 1: mixed with seven beautiful children. It should be a hit,
1:08
Speaker 1: right maybe, but that pesky manslaughter charge may have ruined
1:15
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Instead of a hitney series, according to
1:21
Speaker 1: TV critics, it's the worst TV program in many years.
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Speaker 1: I'm frankly much more concerned by Helena Hutchins's death seemingly
1:31
Speaker 1: disappearing falling through the cracks of our justice system. But
1:37
Speaker 1: according to critics, the Baldwins, the series that's the title
1:41
Speaker 1: where the couple are executive producers, is called a quote
1:45
Speaker 1: New Low. Another says it's quote one of the darkest
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Speaker 1: and most bizarre hours of TV to appear in recent memory.
1:54
Speaker 1: You know, it's hard to focus on the so called
1:57
Speaker 1: joyous family life of seven children and two parents when
2:01
Speaker 1: the ghost of Alena Hutchins is hovering over the entire production.
2:08
Speaker 2: What happened tragedy on the film set of a new
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Speaker 2: Alec Baldwin movie and what police are calling a misfire
2:15
Speaker 2: of a prop gun in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The
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Speaker 2: Sheriff's office there has just confirmed it was Baldwin who
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Speaker 2: fired the prop gun that killed a forty two year
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Speaker 2: old female director of stotography, Helena Hutchins. The film's director
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Speaker 2: Juels Sousa was also hurt. This incident happened on the
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Speaker 2: set of the Western Rust. Now detectives are investigating what
2:40
Speaker 2: type of projectile discharged from this gun?
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Speaker 1: You are just hearing Our friend Christine Johnson was CBS
2:47
Speaker 1: what really happened? According to reports, the assistant yelled out
2:53
Speaker 1: cold gun just before the shooting, which means the gun
2:58
Speaker 1: was safe, that it was loaded with a blank. So
3:01
Speaker 1: how do we have a woman, dad, another film person injured?
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Speaker 1: With me and I'll start panel to make sense of
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Speaker 1: it all if we can with me Domini, Romano lawyer
3:12
Speaker 1: joining us out of New York at Romano Law dot
3:15
Speaker 1: Com is specialty entertainment law, and I can tell you
3:18
Speaker 1: if somebody's going to need a lawyer. Doctor Sherry Schwartz
3:20
Speaker 1: forensic psychologists joining us. Karen L. Smith, forensic expert, host
3:25
Speaker 1: of Shattered Soul's podcast at Beer Bonesforensics dot com. Paul
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Speaker 1: Zeike joining us special guest, former police commander and author
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Speaker 1: of Stop Him From Killing Them on Amazon, and he
3:40
Speaker 1: has lots of experience using firearms with blanks during live
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Speaker 1: action movie scenes like Terminator Salvation. Doctor Michelle Dupre forensic pathologists,
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Speaker 1: former medical examiner, author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide, and
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Speaker 1: a former police detective. But first to Alexis Terres, Crime
4:00
Speaker 1: online dot com investigative reporter joining us from Hollywood, Alexis
4:05
Speaker 1: is what is getting folded into the story, right or wrong?
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Speaker 1: Is Alec Baldwin's history, his reputation for let me just
4:17
Speaker 1: say hot headedness to put it ephemistically. If he thought
4:24
Speaker 1: it was a blank and it should have been a blank,
4:27
Speaker 1: then history aside it was an accident. But how can
4:31
Speaker 1: it really be an accident when somebody loaded this prop
4:37
Speaker 1: gun with real bullets just started.
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Speaker 3: At the beginning, they were on a set in Santa Fe,
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Speaker 3: New Mexico. It's a Western style movie. So they were
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Speaker 3: sitting in a church at an old church Seene and
4:48
Speaker 3: Alex Baldwen was sitting in one of the pewes and
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Speaker 3: he was practicing.
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Speaker 4: What's called a cross draw.
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Speaker 3: And so that would be where the person takes your
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Speaker 3: left hand and grabs the gun out of the holster
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Speaker 3: on your speak opposite a hip, pulled it across to fire.
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Speaker 5: He was practicing this.
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Speaker 3: Move standing the cinematographer, which is the person that makes
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Speaker 3: the movie beautiful. This is the person that films the scene.
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Speaker 3: She was standing in front of him with the assistant
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Speaker 3: director stand Lumbard, with the director standing right behind her.
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Speaker 4: He was looking over her.
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Speaker 3: Shoulder to see what it would look like when Alex
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Speaker 3: pulled the gun out. He pulled it out of the side,
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Speaker 3: points it at her to show them, pulls the trigger
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Speaker 3: and it fires a live round into her. Hits her
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Speaker 3: in the stomach and actually, believe goes through her and
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Speaker 3: grazes the director sitting standing right behind her.
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Speaker 1: Hush has pronounced dead at an Albuquerque hospital after being
5:42
Speaker 1: rushed to the emergency room. You know what, I always
5:45
Speaker 1: love playing nine to one one calls for a jury
5:49
Speaker 1: because it takes you back to what's really happening. Not
5:51
Speaker 1: a description, not someone recounting what happened, but you're hearing
5:56
Speaker 1: what really happened. Take a listen to the beginning of that.
6:00
Speaker 1: I'm on one call.
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Speaker 4: Only going one.
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Speaker 6: Watch the location of your emergency.
6:05
Speaker 7: We need a that we.
6:06
Speaker 6: Needed and out a Bonanza free grants right now. We
6:09
Speaker 6: got to people shot on the accidentally. He said someone
6:13
Speaker 6: was shot. Two people accidentally with guns, gunshot cart on
6:18
Speaker 6: movie sets and a creek. Granted it. I'll connect you
6:21
Speaker 6: with medical decided. Who are you calling?
6:27
Speaker 7: Where are the road?
6:32
Speaker 6: Don't hire emergency Bonanza free grants.
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Speaker 4: Two people accidentally shot on a movie set top guns.
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Speaker 6: We need help the immediate, like Finanza free grants. Come on,
6:45
Speaker 6: say almost phone, we're going to Okay, what is your name?
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Speaker 3: Namely Mitchell?
6:52
Speaker 6: That Mitchell wants upon where you're calling from?
6:56
Speaker 2: Five up?
7:00
Speaker 7: So I hang up?
7:01
Speaker 6: Okay one second sounds like somebody else is calling for
7:12
Speaker 6: calling better mission. Everybody should be can helpers director in
7:19
Speaker 6: our cameraman as the camera woman's shots.
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Speaker 1: Now you hear repeatedly the word accident accidentally throughout that?
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Speaker 1: But is it an accident? Very often when you have,
7:31
Speaker 1: for instance, a dui crash, people go, well, it was
7:36
Speaker 1: an accident, But was it because the driver chooses to
7:41
Speaker 1: go to a bar to order drinks, to drink, to
7:45
Speaker 1: become legally intoxicated, to then get the car keys, walk
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Speaker 1: to the car, get in the car, crank up reverse,
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Speaker 1: and drive out onto the roads. That sounds pretty deliberate.
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Speaker 1: So is it an accident? Is it negligence? Well take
8:01
Speaker 1: a listen to more of that nine on one call.
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Speaker 4: So was it loaded with a real bullet?
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Speaker 6: Or I don't I cannot start you up? Okay, we
8:09
Speaker 6: have two injuries from the movies. Guns Jock were getting
8:14
Speaker 6: out there already just down upon with an Okay, it
8:20
Speaker 6: was that yelled at me at lunch because ask him
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Speaker 6: about revision. You can ye and yell at me. He's
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Speaker 6: a suctested gun. He's reponsible to answer.
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Speaker 3: How many?
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Speaker 6: No, no, no, I'm a super hard I ran People
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Speaker 6: were injured too, that I know of.
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Speaker 4: I was seeing.
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Speaker 6: We were hurting and it went off and I ran out.
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Speaker 6: We all ran out. They were doubled over the id
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Speaker 6: and the camera woman and the director and the directors
8:51
Speaker 6: were clearing the road. Tan to come back. We're back
8:52
Speaker 6: on the way.
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Speaker 8: We're back in the town.
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Speaker 9: I called them.
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Speaker 6: We're back in the western town.
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Speaker 4: Is there any serious bleedings?
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Speaker 9: I don't know.
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Speaker 6: I ran out of the building and I still have
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Speaker 6: to go through these Okay, are they alert?
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Speaker 1: I'm hearing a lot of discussion in the background. You
9:14
Speaker 1: hear this speaker talking to somebody else about someone yelling
9:18
Speaker 1: at her and lunch about script revision, and she says
9:23
Speaker 1: she's supposed to shack the gun. He's responsible for what happened. No, No,
9:27
Speaker 1: I'm a script supervisor Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. That's right.
9:44
Speaker 1: There never seems to be an end to the Alec
9:47
Speaker 1: Baldwin manslaughter saga. Now apparently this couple, Alec Baldwin and
9:58
Speaker 1: his wife see to think that a reality show was
10:02
Speaker 1: the answer to his pr problems caused by the shooting
10:07
Speaker 1: death at his hand of a beautiful young mom, a
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Speaker 1: cinematographer on the set of movie Rust. But the fallout
10:16
Speaker 1: of that shooting may have doomed the reality show. Aside
10:21
Speaker 1: from the reality show, I can't get my mind off
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Speaker 1: the fact that Alec Baldwin insisted he did not pull
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Speaker 1: the trigger, but according to ballistics experts, that is a lie.
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Speaker 1: What happened on the set of Rust? And why are
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Speaker 1: we now reduced to simply analyzing a reality show? Where
10:46
Speaker 1: is the justice? Paul Zake, thank you for being with us.
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Speaker 1: What went wrong? Obviously there was a live bullet and
10:55
Speaker 1: what should have been a prop gun. But what happened?
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Speaker 7: Nancy? The explanation for this is a systemic breakdown in
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Speaker 7: systems that are in place to ensure that live ammunition
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Speaker 7: is not present on the set.
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Speaker 1: Okay, now that was a lot of words, Paul's I
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Speaker 1: think you're saying somebody didn't do their job.
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Speaker 7: Well, absolutely, somebody did not do their job and catastrophically
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Speaker 7: did not do that. There's no reason whatsoever for live
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Speaker 7: ammunition to be on the set of any set because
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Speaker 7: these weapons are capable of firing live rounds. They're not
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Speaker 7: really prop guns. They're deadly weapons being used as props.
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Speaker 1: Okay, hold on right there, I want to make that distinction.
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Speaker 1: You're absolutely right. When look, I'm a trial lawyer, I'm
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Speaker 1: a legal expert. You're the expert in this world. When
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Speaker 1: I say prompt gun, I mean they're using it as
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Speaker 1: a prop. But you're making a very fine, subtle, but
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Speaker 1: important distinction. A prompt gun is a fake gun. I
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Speaker 1: don't think it even can Is that right?
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Speaker 7: Exactly? If you're talking about say it prop nice? Correct,
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Speaker 7: It has a flat edge on it. It's incapable of
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Speaker 7: cutting you. These are things that are not deemed to
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Speaker 7: be dangerous. A prop gun is simply as utilized on
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Speaker 7: set our weapons that are capable of firing live ammunition
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Speaker 7: and therefore accidentally live ammunition could be mixed with blank rounds.
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Speaker 7: You know, given time, this is just a disaster waiting
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Speaker 7: to happen. They need to move to true guns that
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Speaker 7: are incapable of chambering live ammunition. Until that happens, this
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Speaker 7: has a very strong chance of repeating itself.
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Speaker 1: Well, okay, tell me this. Paul z Iike guys with me.
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Speaker 10: Paul z II.
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Speaker 1: He is a former police commander. He's an author, screen
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Speaker 1: actors guil and has experience using blanks during live action
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Speaker 1: movie scenes where we all think they're shooting real guns.
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Speaker 1: If you suspend your disbelief in movies like Terminator Salvation
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Speaker 1: and those aren't real guns. So why are they using
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Speaker 1: a real gun to start with? Paul Zeike, and I
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Speaker 1: mean to me, having been forced to handle so many
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Speaker 1: guns and so many homicides, what moron wouldn't make sure
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Speaker 1: that there were blanks in the gun.
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Speaker 7: It's hard to imagine that during the loading of the
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Speaker 7: weapon that that was not viewed very strictly as a
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Speaker 7: weapon is loaded. And also there's a chain of custody
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Speaker 7: issue here on the scene of Terminator Salvation. As we
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Speaker 7: would go out and we would you conduct the battle scene,
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Speaker 7: if you will, in the middle of the night. We
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Speaker 7: would be handed directly from the armor fully automatic weapons
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Speaker 7: and magazines, fully loaded with blanks, and we would head
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Speaker 7: straight out to where the scene was to be shot,
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Speaker 7: and then we would engage in the scene, you know,
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Speaker 7: five ten minutes later, hand the weapons straight back to
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Speaker 7: the armor, all the ammunition back to the armor, all
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Speaker 7: the magazines back to the arm, and we would not
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Speaker 7: be able to touch those weapons again until the next scene.
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Speaker 7: So from a chain of custody standpoint, I went directly
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Speaker 7: from the armor directly to my hand, my the co
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Speaker 7: actor's hands that were with me, and that was maintained
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Speaker 7: very strictly.
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Speaker 1: Hold on, Paul, I've got to soak in everything. You're saying,
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Speaker 1: because Dominic Romano, a high profile lawyer, joining us out
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Speaker 1: of New York's specialty entertainment law. And that's why Dominate's
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Speaker 1: joining us today. Dominick hold On. When you heard Paul's
14:31
Speaker 1: like say, chain of custody, I immediately thought of a
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Speaker 1: serial murderer that I prosecuted on one murder. We could
14:37
Speaker 1: get them on one and there ended up I would
14:41
Speaker 1: say three weeks before trial. I was just looking at
14:44
Speaker 1: the evidence and I noticed that the bag that contained
14:48
Speaker 1: the evidence wasn't signed. It had never been signed by
14:53
Speaker 1: the homicide cop that picked it up from It was DNA,
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Speaker 1: and there's blood from where it had been taken and
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Speaker 1: carried to the crime lab. It wasn't written on the back.
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Speaker 1: Did anybody ten for with it? No, he just didn't
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Speaker 1: put his initials. I'm like, oh, dear Lord in Heaven,
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Speaker 1: the chain is broken. This could be attacked at trial.
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Speaker 1: I had to go back out to the jail stand
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Speaker 1: there and look at this killer while he pulled his
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Speaker 1: blood again. Then I carried it with my investigator myself
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Speaker 1: back to the crime lab to have it retested. Praise
15:25
Speaker 1: the Lord in Heaven. It was his DNA. Long story short,
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Speaker 1: that's chain of custody. Your case can be lost. You
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Speaker 1: can lose a serial killer because somebody didn't keep the
15:35
Speaker 1: chain to preserve the integrity of the trial. That's what
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Speaker 1: I thought when Paul Zaike sapt chain of custody. But
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Speaker 1: did you also hear him say dominic romano he handed
15:46
Speaker 1: it back to the It sounded like he was saying
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Speaker 1: armor or armory. But I've been reading about this case.
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Speaker 1: It's an arm er, armor er who is the person
15:56
Speaker 1: in charge of all the weapons?
16:00
Speaker 7: Absolutely right.
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Speaker 10: Look, no one should ever be killed by a gun
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Speaker 10: on a film set period. Those are the words of
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Speaker 10: Brandon Lee's sister. Brandon Lee shot on a film set
16:12
Speaker 10: in the early nineteen nineties. This should not happen. There
16:15
Speaker 10: are established protocols, gaines who commend I mean, there appears
16:20
Speaker 10: to be some serious gross negligence on that set to
16:24
Speaker 10: allow that to have that. That is the appearance, And
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Speaker 10: I don't know what evidence can come out to rebut.
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Speaker 1: That presumption a live round in well as Paul's Ike
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Speaker 1: is correct in me, it's not a prop gun. They
16:38
Speaker 1: were using real guns. Hey, let me ask you a question,
16:41
Speaker 1: Paul's Ike, explain the difference and what a blank looks
16:46
Speaker 1: like as opposed to a live round of bullet. We're
16:49
Speaker 1: saying live rounds, we're talking about a bullet. What's the difference.
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Speaker 1: Can't you just look at them and you can see
16:54
Speaker 1: the difference In.
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Speaker 7: Most cases, absolutely, it's very clear. You can see the
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Speaker 7: difference in some types of calibers, say two two three,
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Speaker 7: if you will, that's what an AR fifteen would shoot.
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Speaker 7: The blanks are kind of crimped at the end to
17:12
Speaker 7: almost look like there's a bullet on the end of them.
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Speaker 7: With any sort of trained professional whatsoever, when you're handling
17:18
Speaker 7: a blank, you know it's a blank. When it's a bullet,
17:20
Speaker 7: you know it's a bullet. The blank does not have
17:24
Speaker 7: a lead projectile or a steel projectile at the end
17:27
Speaker 7: of the round, so at the end it's either flat
17:30
Speaker 7: or it's slightly crimped to hold in the gunpowder, which
17:35
Speaker 7: you know, the firearm usually needs the gunpowder to correctly
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Speaker 7: function the weapon and cycle the weapon.
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Speaker 10: And that's one of the reasons why blanks are used.
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Speaker 1: Okay, Paul Zych, I really respect you, but you're going
17:48
Speaker 1: to have to dumb me down for me, okay, because
17:51
Speaker 1: I would have to put you to intensive training before
17:54
Speaker 1: you take the stand, because a lot of people do
17:57
Speaker 1: not know what you just said. Just think about it.
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Speaker 1: Thank if there's a way you can say it in
18:01
Speaker 1: more simple terms. What's the difference between a blank and
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Speaker 1: a lie bullet when you look at it? Speak English
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Speaker 1: Man in the meantime, White a minute. You mentioned Brandon Lee,
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Speaker 1: and you're absolutely right. We pulled sound of other cases
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Speaker 1: almost identical to this. This is not the first time
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Speaker 1: it's happened, believe it or not, Tyler, could you roll
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Speaker 1: our cut forty four? Let's follow up on what Paul
18:26
Speaker 1: Zike said about Brandon Lee.
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Speaker 11: That's a bulley comes from that killed Brandon Lee.
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Speaker 1: Some believe a piece of a proply.
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Speaker 11: Without gunpowder, and it may have been left accidentally in
18:35
Speaker 11: the gun. The blank was fired at Brandon. Some feel
18:38
Speaker 11: let's shot out the propoly.
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Speaker 7: Mortally wounding him.
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Speaker 4: He was an action waiting to happen.
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Speaker 11: The Crow crewmember we spoke with says that there were
18:45
Speaker 11: many opportunities for an accident to happen. Are the working
18:48
Speaker 11: conditions on the set of the Crow particularly bad trely
18:52
Speaker 11: long hours eighteen hour days back to back at times
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Speaker 11: pushing ninety one hundred hours a week.
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Speaker 8: And six day weeks wait too much.
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Speaker 11: Do you think that that over work, that exhaustion might
19:06
Speaker 11: have resulted in this accident?
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Speaker 9: Sage your conscience, olive them.
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Speaker 10: We're definitely not comic. It could have been prevented.
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Speaker 1: With better management. The publicist for.
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Speaker 11: The movie The Crow denies that the working conditions were unsafe.
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Speaker 8: Certainly everyone was very tired and exhausted from the shoe,
19:22
Speaker 8: but these are professionals and they're used to working conditions
19:25
Speaker 8: like this.
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Speaker 1: Okay, guys, you were hearing our friends and Inside Edition,
19:28
Speaker 1: and I want to follow up on what we're just
19:30
Speaker 1: hearing with Alexis Tereschuk. I played that sound for a reason, Alexis,
19:35
Speaker 1: because on the Alec Baldwin set of Rust, there apparently
19:40
Speaker 1: were problems with working conditions. A group of the crew
19:45
Speaker 1: had walked out, I think the night before the claiming
19:49
Speaker 1: that they had bad hotels. They were an hour away
19:52
Speaker 1: from a hotel or motel, and if they worked late
19:55
Speaker 1: into the night they have to drive through I guess
19:57
Speaker 1: the desert, and a lot of them were actually sleeping
20:00
Speaker 1: in their cars overnight. That's just some of the complaints
20:04
Speaker 1: I've heard. But what are the other complaints, if any
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Speaker 1: on the Alec Baldwin movie set.
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Speaker 3: Well, there have been complaints that things were not safe quote,
20:15
Speaker 3: but one of the person is being directly blamed for
20:18
Speaker 3: a lot of the unfaked is when you were listening
20:21
Speaker 3: to the nine one one call and you said you
20:22
Speaker 3: heard the woman saying that he was yelling at me
20:24
Speaker 3: things like that. This is the assistant director that they're
20:27
Speaker 3: talking about. And this is the assistant director, David Halls
20:30
Speaker 3: who handed the gun to Baldwin and said this is
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Speaker 3: a cold gun. So what the people on the set
20:37
Speaker 3: were saying is that Halls was not a responcable person.
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Speaker 3: He was very angry. He was making the job very
20:44
Speaker 3: difficult for everybody to do, and they did it to
20:46
Speaker 3: trust him.
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Speaker 1: Wait a minute, you're saying David Halls was an assistant director. Yeah, okay,
20:50
Speaker 1: well what about the honor. Isn't she the one responsible
20:54
Speaker 1: for all the weapons and the blanks or the bullets? Guys,
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Speaker 1: take another Listen to hour cut forty three. This is
21:02
Speaker 1: about practically the same thing happening before. Listen.
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Speaker 11: It was here at the Carrol Coast Studios in Wilmington,
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Speaker 11: North Carolina that actor Brandon Lee was filming The Crow. Ironically,
21:14
Speaker 11: The film is about a man who dies and comes
21:16
Speaker 11: back to life to advanish his death. Shortly after midnight
21:19
Speaker 11: last Tuesday, Brandon Lee was preparing to film a routine
21:23
Speaker 11: action scene. The script called for him to get shot
21:26
Speaker 11: at as he walks through a door carrying a bag
21:28
Speaker 11: of groceries. Michael Massey, the actor doing the shooting, is
21:32
Speaker 11: reportedly devastated by Lee's death and remains in seclusion. The
21:36
Speaker 11: gun he was using was supposed to be loaded with
21:39
Speaker 11: blanks from the camera's rule. Brandon Lee was performing for
21:42
Speaker 11: the last time.
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Speaker 1: The first episodes of a reality show starring Alec Baldwin,
21:49
Speaker 1: his wife, and their seven children are hitting the airwaves now.
21:54
Speaker 1: According to a string of pr specialist, no one could
21:58
Speaker 1: imagine any size or whatever recommended. The ball was agreed
22:02
Speaker 1: to a reality series in the very best of times,
22:08
Speaker 1: let alone after the shooting death of cinematographer Helena Hutchins,
22:14
Speaker 1: Why are you and Karen Smith?
22:16
Speaker 5: Well, we deal a lot with forensics in physics. When
22:19
Speaker 5: we do a reconstruction, we use snippets of time and
22:22
Speaker 5: sometimes that can be split seconds, and this includes trajectories
22:25
Speaker 5: of projectiles, and this trajectory.
22:28
Speaker 9: Can generally be explained by the reporting Alec Baldwin.
22:31
Speaker 5: Was reported to be sitting at.
22:32
Speaker 9: A church pew to align a camera angle when the
22:34
Speaker 9: gun was fired. Alena Hutchins then collapsed.
22:37
Speaker 5: On the floor and Joel Susa.
22:39
Speaker 1: Was struck in the clavicles.
22:41
Speaker 5: That's an upward trajectory, which means both Hutchins and Susa
22:44
Speaker 5: were standing up when the event occurred. The projectile that
22:48
Speaker 5: perforated Helena's body and subsequently struck Joel.
22:51
Speaker 9: Now, in order for that to happen, the kinetic energy,
22:55
Speaker 9: which is energy as the result of motion, would be
22:58
Speaker 9: very high. We're dealing with.
23:00
Speaker 5: Mass or the amount of matter in an object and
23:02
Speaker 5: energy dispersion.
23:04
Speaker 9: Guns carry a high volume of energy in a small space,
23:07
Speaker 9: and that from my experience, it tells me that it
23:10
Speaker 9: was something.
23:10
Speaker 5: Other than just the paper or elastic.
23:13
Speaker 9: Wadding from a blank round. That needs to be confirmed
23:16
Speaker 9: by the EMMY.
23:17
Speaker 5: And the investigators.
23:18
Speaker 9: But there are reports of live ammunition bullets being on
23:22
Speaker 9: the set and that particular gun allegedly being used.
23:26
Speaker 5: For target practice that morning. There's a lot of questions
23:30
Speaker 5: that needs to be answered by the investigators.
23:31
Speaker 1: And the EMMY. Again for the set being used as
23:35
Speaker 1: target practice. Paul Zike that that shouldn't be that you've
23:39
Speaker 1: got crew members out shooting bottles. I think that that's
23:43
Speaker 1: coming out with live bullets and use that same gun
23:48
Speaker 1: for a sane and a church full of people.
23:52
Speaker 7: And Nancy, I just want to clarify the prior point,
23:54
Speaker 7: so very simply, a blank is a is a shellcasing
23:58
Speaker 7: with gun powder in it, no bullet. A bullet is
24:01
Speaker 7: the same exact thing with more gunpowder and a live
24:06
Speaker 7: bullet at the end of it that is made to
24:09
Speaker 7: travel through the barrel and exit the weapon. Back to
24:12
Speaker 7: what you were saying, that the cardinal rule, it's been broken,
24:15
Speaker 7: whether you're whether you're involved in police training or you're
24:18
Speaker 7: involved in a movie set, keeping live ammunition away from
24:24
Speaker 7: weapons that fire live ammunition and keeping weapons at fire
24:28
Speaker 7: blanks away from those instances. And when you mix those
24:31
Speaker 7: two together, the odds of somebody having a spare live
24:35
Speaker 7: round in one of their pockets or you name it
24:38
Speaker 7: is super high, and it sounds very sloppy, and it
24:43
Speaker 7: just just opens the door for terrible things to happen.
24:47
Speaker 7: And that's where the systemic breakdown and that controlled environment.
24:52
Speaker 1: Un Johniet Paul Zeke, You're right, super sloppy is one
24:55
Speaker 1: way to put it. Gross negligence or unintentional murder is
25:00
Speaker 1: another way to put it. I think I hear dominant
25:01
Speaker 1: Ramano jumping in go ahead.
25:03
Speaker 10: Yeah, basically it's a catastrophic miscalculation. I think two people
25:07
Speaker 10: here should be folks. We should focus on one is
25:13
Speaker 10: the armor like this is only according to reports, her
25:16
Speaker 10: second movie with Chairs Read and the assistant director Dave
25:19
Speaker 10: Halls you mentioned before. According to reports, he was fired
25:23
Speaker 10: from a twenty nineteen production of Freedom's Past. I remember
25:26
Speaker 10: suffered a minor injury.
25:28
Speaker 1: Whoa whit a minute? Why why white white? You got
25:30
Speaker 1: me drinking from the fire hydrant, which is not a
25:33
Speaker 1: bad thing. It's too much at once. Hold on, why
25:35
Speaker 1: in the world would you have somebody that was fired
25:37
Speaker 1: off another similar job handling your weapon? Okay? Is that
25:42
Speaker 1: what you just said, dominic?
25:43
Speaker 7: Okay?
25:44
Speaker 1: Almost, so almost.
25:46
Speaker 10: The armorer is twenty four years old, the person handling
25:50
Speaker 10: the weapons. It's only her second film. She was just
25:53
Speaker 10: in a podcast last month where she said, you know,
25:56
Speaker 10: it's a bit nervous about her film, but it went well.
25:59
Speaker 10: Her father's apparently famous armor. Okay, so we have that
26:01
Speaker 10: an experienced armor number two. We have the assistant director
26:05
Speaker 10: one of the AD Dave Holes. Apparently, according to a report,
26:09
Speaker 10: he was fired from its twenty nineteen production. The movie
26:12
Speaker 10: was freedom passed after crew members suffered guess what a
26:16
Speaker 10: minor injury when a gun unexpectedly discharged?
26:21
Speaker 1: Dominate Romano, The words similar transactions are jumping to mind.
26:26
Speaker 1: I mean, this solidifies my thought that this is not
26:31
Speaker 1: an accident, because an accident when you totally don't see
26:36
Speaker 1: it coming, it's just like out of the blue. But
26:38
Speaker 1: if this guy, if it's correct, the AD had a
26:41
Speaker 1: previous incident where somebody was shot on a set. Even
26:45
Speaker 1: if it was a minor injury, then you should have seen.
26:48
Speaker 1: You either new or should have known. Would you agree
26:51
Speaker 1: with that, Dominic Romano.
26:52
Speaker 10: There're going to be some serious questions to be asked,
26:57
Speaker 10: and there have to be answers. And if we don't
27:01
Speaker 10: have good answers, someone is either going to be involved
27:05
Speaker 10: in a very expensive lawsuit or, depending on what they
27:10
Speaker 10: knew and when they knew it and how careless they were,
27:13
Speaker 10: probably facing some time. The other issue you alluded to
27:16
Speaker 10: earlier is cost cutting. It's rampant in the industry right now,
27:21
Speaker 10: and the production company's decision not to book the crew
27:26
Speaker 10: hotel rooms near the actual set, but to have them
27:30
Speaker 10: travel an hour in each direction to get to and
27:33
Speaker 10: from their accommodation, to have long hours where people walked
27:38
Speaker 10: off the set earlier that day in protest. So this
27:42
Speaker 10: is a combination what turned out to be a lethal
27:45
Speaker 10: combination at catastrophic calculation on the part of the production company.
27:49
Speaker 1: Well, you just said a mouthful, all in a good way,
27:53
Speaker 1: betraying the armor or being an experienced the ad having
27:57
Speaker 1: a prior similar transaction, and budget cuts problems amongst the crew.
28:02
Speaker 1: Take a listen to our cut six that are from
28:05
Speaker 1: our friends at News Nation.
28:06
Speaker 8: Now let's start with the people responsible for handling a gun.
28:10
Speaker 8: There are no ubiquitous rules across all film sets, but
28:13
Speaker 8: generally there are some guidelines that they.
28:14
Speaker 1: Follow, and here into a budget.
28:16
Speaker 8: Budget usually plays a big role. On many sets, there
28:19
Speaker 8: are no fewer than three people responsible for monitoring a weapon.
28:22
Speaker 8: The prop master FUMS, in charge of all cropts, is
28:25
Speaker 8: often supported by a safety officer and a SUN coordinator,
28:28
Speaker 8: and depending on the state, you may also need to
28:30
Speaker 8: bring in an armorer whose only job is handling weapons.
28:34
Speaker 8: An armorer is required by New Mexico.
28:36
Speaker 7: State Law.
28:45
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. According to Baldwin's manager quote,
28:54
Speaker 1: there actually hasn't been much criticism of the first episodes. Also,
29:00
Speaker 1: it's been very well received at TLC and everybody's very
29:03
Speaker 1: happy with it. Others strongly disagree. Reality series or no
29:10
Speaker 1: reality series, pr be damned. I'm more concerned about the
29:15
Speaker 1: shooting depth of Elena Hutchins, Doctor Dupree. I'm sure you,
29:20
Speaker 1: like myself, have had to handle weapons in front of
29:24
Speaker 1: jury's and I learned this from watching a pro try cases.
29:30
Speaker 1: I would always pick the gun up, holding it face
29:35
Speaker 1: down with a barrel pointing to the ground so the
29:38
Speaker 1: jury or anyone else would not be alarmed. What you
29:41
Speaker 1: don't want to do is scare your jury. I would
29:45
Speaker 1: walk in front of the jury holding the weapon nose down,
29:49
Speaker 1: open the chamber, let them see me check it, hold
29:52
Speaker 1: it up like I was examining it through, you know,
29:56
Speaker 1: at my eye level, so they can see that it
30:00
Speaker 1: was empty, and then shut it and then give it
30:04
Speaker 1: to the witness without fail. Even if it was a
30:08
Speaker 1: weapon that I knew it was inoperable, that was sp
30:15
Speaker 1: Why would that not occur on a movie set? But
30:19
Speaker 1: describe how you're supposed to handle weapons.
30:22
Speaker 4: Exactly, Nancy, you described it perfectly. That is exactly what
30:25
Speaker 4: you should do. And if you're giving a weapon to
30:27
Speaker 4: someone else, normally you have the chamber open so that
30:30
Speaker 4: they can also see, and then you both check it
30:33
Speaker 4: and know that it's empty or that the blanks.
30:36
Speaker 1: Are in it. Tell me what you can discern about
30:39
Speaker 1: what Karen Smith, forensics expert, just told us about the injuries.
30:44
Speaker 4: What happened, Nancy, Even though these are quote prop guns
30:48
Speaker 4: or blanks, they can still obviously do devastating damage the
30:53
Speaker 4: wadding or whatever they are filled with, even in a blank.
30:56
Speaker 4: But this was not a blink. This was an actual projectile.
31:00
Speaker 4: Know you mean a.
31:01
Speaker 1: Bullet speak English play a bullet.
31:04
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, this is a bullet. And the caliber of
31:08
Speaker 4: that bullet of the gun is what is going to
31:11
Speaker 4: determine how much damage is done. As she explained, the
31:15
Speaker 4: higher the caliber, the more energy in that bullet, and
31:19
Speaker 4: so the more damage done to the physical bodies. And
31:21
Speaker 4: of course the location where that bullet enters the body
31:25
Speaker 4: in this case was devastating.
31:28
Speaker 1: You know, another issue to doctor Sherry Schwartz, I've been
31:30
Speaker 1: on a lot of TV sets obviously, and movie sets
31:33
Speaker 1: for you know, cameos or some legal issue. And I
31:38
Speaker 1: got to tell you, doctor Sherry Schwartz, a movie set
31:42
Speaker 1: takes on a whole. It's like you're in a different world.
31:45
Speaker 1: Like when you go to the movies and you sit
31:48
Speaker 1: down and it goes dark, your mind takes you there. Well,
31:51
Speaker 1: you're on a movie set. I've never been on a
31:54
Speaker 1: single movie set that went on time. You go till
31:58
Speaker 1: one or two o'clock, and the more it's pitch dark outside,
32:02
Speaker 1: you keep going until you get the shot or you
32:05
Speaker 1: finish this scene or whatever it's called in movie world.
32:08
Speaker 1: I think that there is a suspended fear you think
32:14
Speaker 1: you're at a movie set, like when you go to
32:16
Speaker 1: Disneyland or when you're on vacation on a cruise ship.
32:19
Speaker 1: You suspend your normal thinking it doesn't seem real and
32:25
Speaker 1: you're not thinking, wow, there's a gun, I could get
32:28
Speaker 1: shot because it's quote just a movie, it's not real.
32:34
Speaker 1: How do we let me just say, suspend our disbelief,
32:37
Speaker 1: suspend rational rules of functioning when you're on a movie
32:42
Speaker 1: set or in a movie. You know, like in a
32:44
Speaker 1: movie is where there's some nut with a gun and
32:48
Speaker 1: you hear a sound, but you don't think it's real
32:50
Speaker 1: because you're in a movie. What happens in the human mind?
32:53
Speaker 12: Doctor Sherry, Well, when you don't think that something is
32:58
Speaker 12: actually real, then you would not calculate accurately what the
33:04
Speaker 12: potential risks are, right, And so there is this gun
33:09
Speaker 12: on the set, but everybody thinks, oh, it's just make believe,
33:11
Speaker 12: we're setting this up to film it. Nobody's actually going
33:15
Speaker 12: to get hurt. And so what happens mentally is that
33:19
Speaker 12: you underestimate what the potential risks are. And what happened
33:23
Speaker 12: here is an egregious underestimation, right, So for.
33:27
Speaker 4: The rest of us, it's to make believes.
33:29
Speaker 12: Maybe even for the actor, they know that they're just
33:32
Speaker 12: playing a role, and everybody around them might know they're
33:34
Speaker 12: playing a role. But there are people on the set
33:37
Speaker 12: who are responsible for that gun and for taking that
33:41
Speaker 12: proper care and knowing what the potential risks are.
33:44
Speaker 1: Bet do you, Alexis Treesha crimeonline dot Com investigative reporter,
33:48
Speaker 1: You have heard Dominic Romano. Paul's like, well, everyone on
33:52
Speaker 1: the panel weighing in, but apparently there were a lot
33:55
Speaker 1: of problems and a lot of disgruntled crew members. I
33:59
Speaker 1: understand that one of the motels they had set them
34:01
Speaker 1: up to stay overnight was at a place for the homeless,
34:06
Speaker 1: and there were drug addicts there. They were afraid to
34:11
Speaker 1: stay there.
34:13
Speaker 3: What was going on on the set, Well, it seems
34:15
Speaker 3: like what they were trying to do was make this
34:17
Speaker 3: film as cheaply as possible. Understandable, but they were putting
34:21
Speaker 3: people's lives at risk. It was fifty hotels were fifty
34:24
Speaker 3: miles away, so after working fourteen hour days, the crew
34:28
Speaker 3: was having to drive over an hour to get to
34:30
Speaker 3: their hotel. Then they would have to be back within
34:32
Speaker 3: like six hours, so they would get almost no sleep
34:35
Speaker 3: at all. They were also saying that things were just
34:37
Speaker 3: not safe. There had been an incident a few days
34:41
Speaker 3: earlier that one of the prop guns again pro real gun,
34:45
Speaker 3: had been accidentally fired, and so the crew had been
34:49
Speaker 3: complaining to the producer saying this is not a safe
34:52
Speaker 3: working environment, and they walked off the set. And so
34:57
Speaker 3: Hollywood is very much a union business, but the producers
35:02
Speaker 3: hired non union people to replace them. These non union people, though,
35:06
Speaker 3: are not the people. That's not the armor, and it's
35:09
Speaker 3: not the assistant director and everybody's been talking there at
35:12
Speaker 3: the line of protocol. You have so many steps in
35:16
Speaker 3: the line of defense, so that when this gun got
35:19
Speaker 3: to Alex Baldwin, at least two other people were responsible
35:23
Speaker 3: for saying that it wasn't loaded.
35:26
Speaker 1: I mean, didn't somebody even scream out cold gun. I
35:30
Speaker 1: mean they have to yell it out, you know what
35:33
Speaker 1: you were just saying. I know so many times for
35:35
Speaker 1: different shoots. I don't know who he is that carries
35:39
Speaker 1: that comes over and they have to do it a
35:42
Speaker 1: certain way. They have to say a certain thing, and
35:46
Speaker 1: they say it really loudly. I don't know why, but
35:49
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a reason for it, just like they
35:51
Speaker 1: would yell out cold gun and everybody would hear it.
35:56
Speaker 1: But I guess they yelled it out without checking alexis
35:59
Speaker 1: And there are records.
36:00
Speaker 3: Yes, So there were three guns that were set up
36:03
Speaker 3: and they were put on a table outside the church set.
36:06
Speaker 3: And it's because of COVID nineteen protocols, so not a
36:09
Speaker 3: lot of people are in the if it's an inclosed set,
36:12
Speaker 3: they're not there three guns. So the assistant director picked
36:16
Speaker 3: it up. Dave Halls, as the other guy said, you know,
36:19
Speaker 3: has a history of a lot of accidents on sets
36:22
Speaker 3: and handed it to Bodlin and he is the one
36:24
Speaker 3: that yelled out cold gun. There's no nobody has said
36:28
Speaker 3: there's so many people have spoken to the police on
36:31
Speaker 3: the set, so many of the other crew members, and
36:34
Speaker 3: they said they didn't know whether it actually was empty
36:38
Speaker 3: or not. And these guns were used at lunch. This
36:41
Speaker 3: is a post lunch break, so they broke for lunch
36:43
Speaker 3: at twelve thirty. They come back after lunch. During that lunchtime,
36:47
Speaker 3: there are reports that those crew members were using this
36:50
Speaker 3: gun and other guns to shoot beer bottles out in
36:53
Speaker 3: the desert area and using it as target practice, so
36:57
Speaker 3: there could have been alive and then said there was
36:59
Speaker 3: lots to live ammunition. Nobody was told they couldn't bring
37:03
Speaker 3: live ammunition on that.
37:04
Speaker 1: That's another thing that you live around on set.
37:08
Speaker 3: That's a big problem here, and I'd like to jump
37:12
Speaker 3: in there.
37:13
Speaker 7: It's it's it's simply a breakdown of the security of
37:17
Speaker 7: the scene. The only people there that our arms should
37:19
Speaker 7: be security personnel. And you know, in my years, my
37:23
Speaker 7: decade of fighting to keep workplaces safe and to stop
37:28
Speaker 7: stalking offenders from killing victims, I can tell you one
37:32
Speaker 7: thing and that is nobody thinks the unthinkable is going
37:35
Speaker 7: to happen. It's a matter of just human thinking. They
37:39
Speaker 7: think that, well, that happened to somebody else, that didn't
37:41
Speaker 7: happen to me. And because this is somewhat of a
37:44
Speaker 7: rare occurrence on a set, people got laxed, They got
37:48
Speaker 7: lackadays hole about fundamental when it comes to shooting a
37:53
Speaker 7: scene such as this. And just like at any workplace,
37:56
Speaker 7: this is a workplace out in the middle of the desert,
37:58
Speaker 7: just like it would be an office building, those protocols
38:02
Speaker 7: broke down in people at work attempting to do the
38:06
Speaker 7: right thing for the right reasons, had a catastrophic, devastating
38:10
Speaker 7: thing happen, because we as human beings think well, if
38:14
Speaker 7: it hasn't happened, it won't happen. And that's just not
38:16
Speaker 7: the reality of life when it comes to dangerous events.
38:19
Speaker 1: You know, Alec Baldwin is a great, great actor. A
38:24
Speaker 1: lot of people don't like him because he rubs him
38:27
Speaker 1: the wrong way with his jokes, with his actions, with
38:31
Speaker 1: just a history of comments and behavior that irritates some people.
38:40
Speaker 1: But I can tell you this, when I saw the
38:42
Speaker 1: photos of him literally doubled over in grief. I don't
38:48
Speaker 1: think that was acting. I think that was real. As
38:52
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin's reality series plods on what about and more important,
39:02
Speaker 1: what about the little boy she left behind, Nancy Grace
39:07
Speaker 1: signing off Goodbye friend,