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Alec Baldwin: Dismissed! · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
0:07
Speaker 2: Just when you think the Alec Baldwin rust shooting controversy
0:12
Speaker 2: is over, it's not. In the last days, Alec Baldwin's
0:18
Speaker 2: lawsuit against New Mexico prosecutors is dismissed.
0:25
Speaker 1: That's right.
0:26
Speaker 2: Alec Baldwin actually sued prosecutors and others out of Santa Fe.
0:32
Speaker 2: But in the last days a judge saw through Alex
0:35
Speaker 2: Baldwin's meritless lawsuit and dismissed the case, claiming, quote, no
0:41
Speaker 2: significant action has been taken in one hundred and eighty
0:44
Speaker 2: or more days in connection to these claims. After getting
0:49
Speaker 2: his case dropped, that wasn't enough for Alec Baldwin, Baldwin
0:53
Speaker 2: actually filed a lawsuit alleging prosecutors and investigators engaged in
0:59
Speaker 2: malicious execution, abuse of process, intentional expiliation of evidence, and
1:06
Speaker 2: violation of his civil rights.
1:09
Speaker 1: WHOA wait a minute.
1:11
Speaker 2: Helena Hutchins was shot dead and you pull the trigger
1:14
Speaker 2: and now you're claiming your rights were violated even though
1:18
Speaker 2: your case has been dropped.
1:21
Speaker 1: I don't get it. What do we know about the case?
1:26
Speaker 3: Tragedy on the film set of a new Alec Baldwin movie,
1:29
Speaker 3: and what police are calling a misfire of a prop
1:33
Speaker 3: gun in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Sheriff's office there
1:36
Speaker 3: has just confirmed it was Baldwin who fired the prop
1:40
Speaker 3: gun that killed a forty two year old female director
1:44
Speaker 3: of stratography, Helena Hutchins. The film's director, Jules Sousa, was
1:49
Speaker 3: also hurt. This incident happened on the set of The
1:53
Speaker 3: Western Rust. Now detectives are investigating what type of projectile
1:58
Speaker 3: discharged from this gun.
2:00
Speaker 2: We were just hearing our friend Christine Johnson was CBS
2:03
Speaker 2: what really happened. According to reports, the assistant yelled out
2:10
Speaker 2: cold gun just before the shooting, which means the gun
2:15
Speaker 2: was safe, that it was loaded with a blank.
2:17
Speaker 1: So how do we have a.
2:19
Speaker 2: Woman, dad, another film person injured with me and all
2:22
Speaker 2: Star panel to make sense of it all?
2:24
Speaker 1: If we can?
2:25
Speaker 2: With me? Dominate Romano lawyer joining us out of New
2:30
Speaker 2: York at Romano Law dot Com is specialty entertainment law,
2:34
Speaker 2: and I can tell you somebody's going to need a lawyer.
2:36
Speaker 2: Doctor Sherry Schwartz forensic psychologists joining us.
2:39
Speaker 1: Karen L.
2:40
Speaker 2: Smith, forensic expert, host of Shattered Soul's podcast at Beerbonesforensics
2:45
Speaker 2: dot Com Paul Zike joining US special guest, former police
2:49
Speaker 2: commander and author of Stop Him From Killing Them on Amazon,
2:55
Speaker 2: and he has lots of experience using firearms with blanks
3:00
Speaker 2: during live action movie scenes like Terminator Salvation, doctor Michelle
3:06
Speaker 2: Dupre forensic pathologists, former medical examiner, author of Homicide Investigation
3:11
Speaker 2: Field Guide, and a former police detective. But first to
3:15
Speaker 2: Alexis Terreschuk, crime online dot com investigative reporter joining us
3:19
Speaker 2: from Hollywood, Alexis is what is getting folded into the.
3:24
Speaker 1: Story, right or wrong?
3:27
Speaker 2: Is Alec Baldwin's history, his reputation for let me just
3:34
Speaker 2: say hot headedness to put it euphemistically. If he thought
3:40
Speaker 2: it was a blank and it should have been a blank,
3:43
Speaker 2: then history aside.
3:45
Speaker 1: It was an accident.
3:47
Speaker 2: But how can it really be an accident when somebody
3:52
Speaker 2: loaded this prop gun with real bullets?
3:55
Speaker 1: You know? Just started at the beginning, they.
3:57
Speaker 4: Were on a set in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It's
3:59
Speaker 4: a western style movie. So they were sitting in a
4:02
Speaker 4: church at an old church scene, and Alex Baldwin was
4:05
Speaker 4: sitting in one of the pewes and he was practicing
4:08
Speaker 4: what's called a cross draw, and so that would be
4:11
Speaker 4: where the person takes your left hand and grabs the
4:14
Speaker 4: gun out of the holster on the opposite hip, pulls
4:17
Speaker 4: it across to fire. He was practicing this move standing
4:21
Speaker 4: the cinematographer, which is the person that makes the movie beautiful.
4:25
Speaker 4: This is the person that the director that films the scene.
4:30
Speaker 4: She was standing in front of him, with the assistant
4:32
Speaker 4: director standing limpid, with the director standing right behind her.
4:35
Speaker 4: He was looking over her shoulder to see what it
4:37
Speaker 4: would look like when Alex pulled the gun out. He
4:40
Speaker 4: pulled it out of the side, points it at her
4:43
Speaker 4: to show them, pulls the trigger, and it fires a
4:47
Speaker 4: live round into her. Hits her in the stomach and actually,
4:50
Speaker 4: believe goes through her and grazes the director sitting standing
4:53
Speaker 4: right behind her.
4:55
Speaker 2: Hush has pronounced dad at an Albuquerque hospital after being
4:58
Speaker 2: rushed to the emergency room.
5:00
Speaker 1: You know what, I.
5:01
Speaker 2: Always love playing nine one one calls for a jury
5:05
Speaker 2: because it takes you back to what's really happening. Not
5:08
Speaker 2: a description, not someone recounting what happened, but you're hearing
5:13
Speaker 2: what really happened. Take a listen to the beginning of
5:16
Speaker 2: that nine to one one call.
5:18
Speaker 5: We did watch the location of your emergency that we
5:22
Speaker 5: need autic bonancas free grants.
5:25
Speaker 6: Right now, we've got the people shot on.
5:29
Speaker 5: You said, someone with shots two people accidental gunshots a
5:34
Speaker 5: movie steps and Grant wondered it often with medical.
5:41
Speaker 6: Who are you calling?
5:43
Speaker 1: Clear the road?
5:50
Speaker 5: Emergency bonanza, people accidentally shot on a movie?
5:56
Speaker 6: Step live top gun We need out the immediately fanatic
6:00
Speaker 6: free Okay, what is your name?
6:06
Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
6:07
Speaker 5: Mitchell?
6:09
Speaker 1: That Michelle?
6:10
Speaker 5: Where you're calling from?
6:12
Speaker 7: Five up?
6:14
Speaker 4: Don't hang up?
6:15
Speaker 5: Okay, hold on, drink.
6:16
Speaker 6: One second for somebody else is calling better? Everybody should
6:29
Speaker 6: be can help us? Director in our camera manage woman.
6:35
Speaker 2: Now you hear repeatedly the word accident accidentally throughout that.
6:41
Speaker 1: But is it an accident?
6:44
Speaker 2: Very often when you have, for instance, a d UI crash,
6:48
Speaker 2: people go, well it was an accident, But was it
6:52
Speaker 2: because the driver chooses to go to a bar to
6:56
Speaker 2: order drinks, to drink to become legally in tixicated to
7:01
Speaker 2: then get the car keys, walk to the car, get
7:04
Speaker 2: in the car, crank up, reverse and drive out onto
7:07
Speaker 2: the roads. That sounds pretty deliberate. So is it an accident?
7:13
Speaker 2: Is it gross negligence? Well, take a listen to more
7:16
Speaker 2: of that nine to one one call.
7:18
Speaker 8: So was it loaded with a real.
7:19
Speaker 5: Bullet or I cannot tell you that.
7:22
Speaker 6: Okay, we have two injuries from the movie. Gun suh.
7:28
Speaker 6: We're getting out there already.
7:29
Speaker 9: Just down upon.
7:31
Speaker 6: Okay, I good see that yelled at me at lunch
7:36
Speaker 6: because out about me vision can and yell at me.
7:44
Speaker 6: He's a subtested gun to be responsible to.
7:47
Speaker 5: Answer how many no? No, no, I'm super hard injury.
7:52
Speaker 10: True.
7:52
Speaker 5: I was that, I know I was.
7:54
Speaker 6: We were hurting and it went off and I ran out.
7:57
Speaker 6: We all ran out. They were being in the camera
8:02
Speaker 6: woman and the director and the directors were claring the
8:05
Speaker 6: road to come back. We're back on the web. We're
8:07
Speaker 6: back in the town I called. We're back in the
8:09
Speaker 6: western town.
8:14
Speaker 5: Is there any serious leadings? I don't know.
8:17
Speaker 6: I ran out of the building.
8:18
Speaker 5: But when Brian and I still have to go through these, Okay,
8:21
Speaker 5: are they completely alert on the question?
8:30
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, believe it or not.
8:37
Speaker 2: Even after Alec Baldwin's case was dropped, it's over, he
8:44
Speaker 2: sues the prosecutors and investigators, claiming his rights were violated.
8:50
Speaker 2: Does anybody remember the beautiful Young Mom? Senhematographer Helena Hutchins dead,
8:57
Speaker 2: shot dead. Alec Baldwin pulled the trigger. The accident or negligence,
9:04
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. He pulled the trigger and now he
9:07
Speaker 2: is claiming his rights were violated and sues. Look, I've
9:15
Speaker 2: never believed Alec Baldwn intentionally shot Helena Hutchins.
9:19
Speaker 1: I think it was an accident.
9:21
Speaker 2: I think he thought there were prop bullets in the gun,
9:25
Speaker 2: but he pointed the gun and pulled the trigger. Negligent, accident.
9:30
Speaker 2: She's still dead. That said, his case was dropped, it's over.
9:36
Speaker 2: But yet he goes so far as to sue the
9:39
Speaker 2: prosecutors and investigators that they were all out to get him. Reminder,
9:45
Speaker 2: this young mom is dead and you're suing because you
9:49
Speaker 2: think your rights were violated.
9:51
Speaker 1: Oh my stars.
9:54
Speaker 2: Back to the facts of the case, paul'sake, Thank you
9:57
Speaker 2: for being with us. What went Obviously there was a
10:01
Speaker 2: live bullet and what should have been a prop gun.
10:04
Speaker 10: But what happened, Nancy. The only explanation for this is
10:09
Speaker 10: a systemic breakdown in systems that are in place to
10:13
Speaker 10: ensure that live ammunition is not present on the set.
10:18
Speaker 2: Okay, now that was a lot of words. Paul's I
10:20
Speaker 2: think you're saying somebody didn't do their job.
10:23
Speaker 10: Well, absolutely, somebody did not do their job and catastrophically
10:29
Speaker 10: did not do that. There's no reason whatsoever for live
10:31
Speaker 10: ammunition to be on the set of any set. Because
10:35
Speaker 10: these weapons are capable of firing live rounds. They're not
10:38
Speaker 10: really prop guns. They're deadly weapons being used as props.
10:42
Speaker 2: Okay, hold on, right there, I want to make that distinction.
10:45
Speaker 2: You're absolutely right. When look, I'm a trial lawyer, I'm
10:50
Speaker 2: a legal expert.
10:52
Speaker 1: You're the expert in this world. When I say prop.
10:54
Speaker 2: Gun, I mean they're using it as a prop. But
11:00
Speaker 2: you're making a very fine, subtle, but important distinction. A
11:04
Speaker 2: prompt gun is a fake gun. I don't think it
11:07
Speaker 2: even can shoot, Is that right?
11:09
Speaker 1: Exactly?
11:09
Speaker 10: If you're talking about say it pop nice, correct, it
11:12
Speaker 10: has a flat edge on it, It's incapable of cutting you.
11:15
Speaker 10: These are things that are not deemed to be dangerous.
11:19
Speaker 10: A prop gun is simply as utilized on set. Our
11:23
Speaker 10: weapons that are capable of firing live ammunition, and therefore
11:28
Speaker 10: accidentally live ammunition could be mixed with blank rounds. You know,
11:32
Speaker 10: given time, this is just a disaster waiting to happen.
11:36
Speaker 10: They need to move to true guns that are incapable
11:40
Speaker 10: of chambering live ammunition. Until that happens, this has a
11:45
Speaker 10: very strong chance of repeating itself.
11:47
Speaker 1: Well, okay, tell me this. Paul's II. Guys with me.
11:50
Speaker 1: Paul's I.
11:51
Speaker 2: He is a former police commander, He's an author screen
11:56
Speaker 2: actors gil and has experience using blanks during live action
12:01
Speaker 2: movie scenes where we all think they're shooting real guns.
12:03
Speaker 2: If you suspend your disbelief in movies like his Terminator Salvation,
12:09
Speaker 2: those aren't real guns. So why are they using a
12:11
Speaker 2: real gun? To start with? Paul zike Ada mean to me,
12:16
Speaker 2: having been forced to handle so many guns and so
12:20
Speaker 2: many homicides, what moron wouldn't make sure that there were
12:25
Speaker 2: blanks in the gun.
12:27
Speaker 10: It's hard to imagine that during the loading of the
12:31
Speaker 10: weapon that that was not viewed very strictly as a
12:35
Speaker 10: weapon is loaded. And also there's a chain of custody
12:39
Speaker 10: issue here on the scene of Terminator Salvation. As we
12:42
Speaker 10: would go out and we would conduct the battle scene,
12:45
Speaker 10: if you will, in the middle of the night, we
12:47
Speaker 10: would be handed directly from the armor, fully automatic weapons
12:51
Speaker 10: and magazines fully loaded with blanks, and we would head
12:55
Speaker 10: straight out to where these scene was to be shot,
12:58
Speaker 10: and then we would engage in the seen you know,
13:00
Speaker 10: five ten minutes later, and the weapon straight back to
13:03
Speaker 10: the armor, all the ammunition back to the armor, all
13:06
Speaker 10: the magazine back to the armor, and we would not
13:10
Speaker 10: be able to touch those weapons again until the next scene.
13:13
Speaker 10: So from a chaine of custody standpoint, I went directly
13:16
Speaker 10: from the armor directly to my hand, my you know,
13:19
Speaker 10: the co actor's hands that were with me, and that
13:23
Speaker 10: was maintained very strictly.
13:24
Speaker 2: Hold On, Paul, I've got to soak in everything you're saying,
13:28
Speaker 2: because Dominic Romano a high profile lawyer joining us out
13:32
Speaker 2: of New York's specialty entertainment law.
13:34
Speaker 1: And that's why Dominic's joining us today. Dominick, hold On, when.
13:38
Speaker 2: You heard Paul's like say, chain of custody, I immediately
13:42
Speaker 2: thought of a serial murderer that I prosecuted.
13:44
Speaker 1: On one murder.
13:45
Speaker 2: We could get them on one and there ended up
13:49
Speaker 2: I would say, three weeks before trial. I was just
13:51
Speaker 2: looking at the evidence and I noticed that the bag
13:55
Speaker 2: that contained the evidence wasn't signed. It had never been
14:00
Speaker 2: signed by the homicide cop that picked it up from
14:05
Speaker 2: it was DNA in there was blood from where it
14:07
Speaker 2: had been taken and carried to the crime lab. It
14:09
Speaker 2: wasn't written on the back. Did anybody tamper with it? No,
14:13
Speaker 2: he just didn't put his initials. I'm like, oh, dear
14:15
Speaker 2: Lord in Heaven, the chain is broken. This could be
14:18
Speaker 2: attacked at trial. I had to go back out to
14:21
Speaker 2: the jail, stand there and look at this killer while
14:24
Speaker 2: he pulled his blood again. Then I carried it with
14:28
Speaker 2: my investigator myself back to the crime lab to have
14:31
Speaker 2: it retested.
14:33
Speaker 1: Praise the Lord in Heaven. It was his DNA.
14:35
Speaker 2: Long story short, that's chain of custody. Your case can
14:38
Speaker 2: be lost. You can lose a serial killer because somebody
14:43
Speaker 2: didn't keep the chain to preserve the integrity of the trial.
14:47
Speaker 2: That's what I thought when Paul Zike said chain of custody.
14:51
Speaker 2: But did you also hear him say dominic remino he
14:53
Speaker 2: handed it back to the It sounded like he was
14:56
Speaker 2: saying armor or armory.
14:58
Speaker 1: But I've been reading about this case.
15:00
Speaker 2: An arm er, armor er, who is the person in
15:05
Speaker 2: charge of all the weapons, And I think.
15:07
Speaker 7: Paul is absolutely right. Look, no one should ever be
15:11
Speaker 7: killed by a gun on a film set period. Those
15:14
Speaker 7: are the words of Brandon Lee's sister Brandon Lee shot
15:19
Speaker 7: on a film set in the early nineteen nineties. This
15:22
Speaker 7: should not happen. There are established protocols, chains of command.
15:26
Speaker 7: I mean, there appears to be some serious gross negligence
15:31
Speaker 7: on that set to allow that to have that. That
15:33
Speaker 7: is the appearance, And I don't know what evidence can
15:37
Speaker 7: come out to rebut that presumption.
15:39
Speaker 2: A live round in well, as Paul's ike has corrected me,
15:45
Speaker 2: it's not a prop gun.
15:46
Speaker 1: They were using real guns.
15:48
Speaker 2: Hey, let me ask you a question, Paul z Iike,
15:50
Speaker 2: explain the difference and what a blank looks like as
15:54
Speaker 2: opposed to a live round a bullet And we're saying
15:57
Speaker 2: live rounds, we're talking about a bullet.
16:00
Speaker 1: What's the difference. Can't you just look at them and
16:02
Speaker 1: you can see the difference.
16:03
Speaker 10: In most cases, absolutely, it's very clear. You can see
16:07
Speaker 10: the difference. In some types of calibers, say two two three,
16:11
Speaker 10: if you will, that's sort an AR fifteen would shoot.
16:15
Speaker 10: The blanks are kind of crimped at the end to
16:20
Speaker 10: almost look like there's a bullet on the end of them.
16:23
Speaker 10: But any sort of trained professional whatsoever, when you're handling
16:26
Speaker 10: a blank, you know it's a blank. When it's a bullet,
16:28
Speaker 10: you know it's a bullet. The blank does not have
16:32
Speaker 10: a lead projectile or a steel projectile at the end
16:35
Speaker 10: of the round. So at the end it's either flat
16:38
Speaker 10: or it's slightly crimped to hold in the gunpowder, which
16:43
Speaker 10: you know, the firearm usually needs the gunpowder to correctly
16:48
Speaker 10: function the weapon and cycle the weapon. And that's one
16:51
Speaker 10: of the reasons why blanks are used.
16:53
Speaker 2: Okay, Paul's I really respect you, but you're going to
16:56
Speaker 2: have to dumb me down for me, okay, because I
16:59
Speaker 2: would have to put you through intensive training before you
17:02
Speaker 2: took the stand because a lot of people do not
17:05
Speaker 2: know what you just said. Just think about it and
17:07
Speaker 2: think you there's a way you can say it in
17:09
Speaker 2: more simple terms. What's the difference between a blank and
17:13
Speaker 2: a lie bullet when you look at it? Speak English
17:17
Speaker 2: Man in the meantime, Wait a minute, you mentioned Brandon Lee,
17:20
Speaker 2: and you're absolutely right. We pulled sound of other cases
17:24
Speaker 2: almost identical to this. This is not the first time
17:28
Speaker 2: it's happened, Believe it or not, Tyler, could you roll
17:31
Speaker 2: our cut forty four? Let's follow up on what Paul
17:34
Speaker 2: Zike said about Brandon Lee.
17:36
Speaker 11: That's a bully comes found that killed Brandon Lee. Some
17:39
Speaker 11: believe a piece of a proply without gunpowder and it
17:42
Speaker 11: may have been left accidentally in the gun.
17:44
Speaker 1: The blank was fired at Brandon.
17:46
Speaker 11: Some feel let's shot out the properly, mortally wounding him.
17:49
Speaker 8: It was an actioning way to happen.
17:51
Speaker 11: The Crow crewmember we spoke with says that there were
17:53
Speaker 11: many opportunities for an accident to happen. Are the working
17:56
Speaker 11: conditions on the set of The Crow particularly bad? Threely
18:00
Speaker 11: long hours, eighteen hour days back to back at times,
18:05
Speaker 11: pushing ninety one hundred hours.
18:06
Speaker 5: A week and six day weeks way too much.
18:09
Speaker 11: Do you think that that over work, that exhaustion might
18:14
Speaker 11: have resulted in this accident?
18:15
Speaker 1: Stage your conscious.
18:16
Speaker 7: Olive them were definitely not call.
18:18
Speaker 5: It could have been prevented.
18:21
Speaker 1: With better management.
18:23
Speaker 11: The publicist for the movie The Crow denies that the
18:25
Speaker 11: working conditions were insane.
18:27
Speaker 12: Certainly, everyone was very tired and exhausted from the shoe,
18:30
Speaker 12: but these are professionals and they're used to working conditions
18:33
Speaker 12: like this.
18:33
Speaker 2: Okay, guys, you were hearing our friends and Inside Edition,
18:36
Speaker 2: and I want to follow up on what we're just
18:38
Speaker 2: hearing with Alexis Tereschuk. I played that sound for a reason, Alexis,
18:43
Speaker 2: because on the Alec Baldwin set of Rust, there apparently
18:48
Speaker 2: were problems with working conditions. A group of the crew
18:53
Speaker 2: had walked out I think the night before the claiming
18:57
Speaker 2: that they had bad hotels. They were an hour away
19:00
Speaker 2: from a hotel or motel and if they work late
19:03
Speaker 2: into the night, they have to drive through I guess
19:05
Speaker 2: the desert and a lot of them were actually sleeping
19:08
Speaker 2: in their cars overnight. That's just some of the complaints
19:12
Speaker 2: I've heard.
19:13
Speaker 1: But what are the other.
19:15
Speaker 2: Complaints, if any, on the Alec Baldwin movie set.
19:18
Speaker 4: Well, there have been complaints that things were not safe quote.
19:23
Speaker 4: But one of the person is being directly blamed for
19:27
Speaker 4: a lot of the unfaked is when you were listening
19:29
Speaker 4: to the nine one one call and you said you
19:30
Speaker 4: heard the woman saying that he was yelling at me
19:32
Speaker 4: things like that. This is the assistant director that they're
19:35
Speaker 4: talking about. And this is the assistant director, David Halls,
19:38
Speaker 4: who handed the gun to Baldwin and said this is
19:42
Speaker 4: a cold gun. So what the people on the set
19:45
Speaker 4: were saying is that Halls was not a responsble person.
19:48
Speaker 4: He was very angry.
19:49
Speaker 9: He was making the job very difficult for everybody to do, and.
19:53
Speaker 4: They didn't trust him.
19:54
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, you're saying David Halls was an assistant director. Yeah, okay,
19:58
Speaker 2: Well what about the honor? Is she the one responsible
20:02
Speaker 2: for all the weapons and the blanks or the bullets? Guys,
20:06
Speaker 2: take another Listen to our cut forty three.
20:10
Speaker 1: This is about practically the same thing happening before. Listen.
20:14
Speaker 11: It was here at the Carrol Coast Studios in Wilmington,
20:17
Speaker 11: North Carolina that actor Brandon Lee was filming The Crow.
20:21
Speaker 1: Ironically, the film.
20:22
Speaker 11: Is about a man who dies and comes back to
20:25
Speaker 11: life to avenge his death. Shortly after midnight last Tuesday,
20:28
Speaker 11: Brandon Lee was preparing to film a routine action scene
20:32
Speaker 11: in the script for him to get shot as he
20:34
Speaker 11: walks through door carrying a bag of groceries. Michael Massey,
20:38
Speaker 11: the actor doing the shooting, is reportedly devastated by Lee's
20:42
Speaker 11: death and remains in seclusion. The Gunny was using was
20:45
Speaker 11: supposed to be loaded with blanks from the camera's rule.
20:49
Speaker 13: Brandon Lee was performing for the last time.
20:52
Speaker 2: The first episodes of a reality show starring Alec Baldwin,
20:57
Speaker 2: his wife and their seven children are hitting the airwaves now.
21:02
Speaker 2: According to a string of PR specialists, no one can
21:06
Speaker 2: imagine any advisor would have recommended the ball once agree
21:10
Speaker 2: to a reality series in the very best of times,
21:16
Speaker 2: let alone after the shooting death of cinematographer Helena Hutchins.
21:22
Speaker 1: Why are you and Karen Smith?
21:24
Speaker 13: Well, we deal a lot with forensics in physics. When
21:27
Speaker 13: we do a reconstruction, we use snippets of time and
21:30
Speaker 13: sometimes that can be split seconds, and this includes trajectories
21:33
Speaker 13: of projectiles, and this trajectory can generally be explained by
21:37
Speaker 13: the reporting. Alec Baldwin was reported to be sitting at
21:40
Speaker 13: a church pew to align a camera angle when the
21:43
Speaker 13: gun was fired. Alena Hutchins then collapsed on the floor
21:46
Speaker 13: and Joel's Susa was struck in the clavicles. That's an
21:49
Speaker 13: upward trajectory, which means both Hutchins and Susa were standing
21:53
Speaker 13: up when the event occurred. The projectile that perporated Helena's
21:57
Speaker 13: body and subsequently struck Joel.
22:00
Speaker 1: In order for that to.
22:01
Speaker 13: Happen, the kinetic energy, which is energy as the result
22:05
Speaker 13: of motion, would be very high. We're dealing with mass,
22:08
Speaker 13: or the amount of matter in an object and energy
22:11
Speaker 13: dispersion guns carry a high volume of energy in a
22:14
Speaker 13: small space, and that from my experience, it tells me
22:17
Speaker 13: that it was something other than just the paper or
22:20
Speaker 13: elastic wadding from a blank round. That needs to be
22:24
Speaker 13: confirmed by the EMMY and the investigators. But there are
22:27
Speaker 13: reports of live ammunition bullets being on the set and
22:31
Speaker 13: that particular gun allegedly being used for target practice that morning.
22:37
Speaker 13: There's a lot of questions that needs to be answered
22:39
Speaker 13: by the investigators and theme.
22:41
Speaker 2: Again for the set being used as target practice. Paul Zeike,
22:45
Speaker 2: that shouldn't be that you've got crew members out shooting bottles.
22:50
Speaker 2: I think that that's coming out with live bullets and
22:54
Speaker 2: use that same gun for a sane and a church
22:59
Speaker 2: full of people.
23:00
Speaker 10: And Nancy, I just want to clarify the prior point,
23:02
Speaker 10: so very simply, a blank is a shellcasing with gunpowder
23:07
Speaker 10: in it with no bullet. A bullet is the same
23:10
Speaker 10: exact thing with more gunpowder and a live bullet at
23:15
Speaker 10: the end of it that is made to travel through
23:18
Speaker 10: the barrel and exit the weapon. But back to what
23:21
Speaker 10: you were saying at the Cardinal rule, it's been broken.
23:23
Speaker 10: Whether you're whether you're involved in police training, or you're
23:26
Speaker 10: involved in a movie set, keeping live ammunition away from
23:32
Speaker 10: weapons that fire live ammunition and keeping weapons at fire
23:36
Speaker 10: blanks away from those instances. And when you mix those
23:39
Speaker 10: two together, the odds of somebody having a spare live
23:43
Speaker 10: round in one of their pockets or you name it
23:46
Speaker 10: is super high, and it sounds very sloppy, and it
23:51
Speaker 10: just just opens the door for terrible things to happen.
23:55
Speaker 10: And that's where the systemic breakdown and that controlled environment.
24:00
Speaker 2: Well, I'm telling you, Paul's like, you're right. Super sloppy
24:02
Speaker 2: is one way to put it. Gross negligence or unintentional
24:07
Speaker 2: murder is another.
24:08
Speaker 1: Way to put it. I think I hear dominant Ramano
24:10
Speaker 1: jumping in go ahead.
24:11
Speaker 7: Yeah. Basically it's a catastrophic miscalculation. I think two people
24:15
Speaker 7: here should be folks. We should focus on one is
24:21
Speaker 7: the armor like this is only according to reports, her
24:24
Speaker 7: second movie with jars Read and the assistant director Dave
24:27
Speaker 7: Hauls you mentioned before. According to reports, he was fired
24:31
Speaker 7: from a twenty nineteen production of Freedom's Past I first
24:34
Speaker 7: time for a minor injury.
24:36
Speaker 1: WHOA why why white white?
24:38
Speaker 2: You got me drinking from the fire hydrant, which is
24:40
Speaker 2: not a bad thing. It's too much at once. Hold on,
24:43
Speaker 2: in the world, would you have somebody that was fired
24:45
Speaker 2: off another similar job handling your weapon?
24:49
Speaker 1: Okay? Is that what you just said, dominic?
24:52
Speaker 10: Okay?
24:53
Speaker 7: Almost?
24:53
Speaker 13: So almost.
24:54
Speaker 7: The armorer is twenty four years old. The person handling
24:58
Speaker 7: the weapons, it's only her film. She was just in
25:01
Speaker 7: a podcast last month where she said, you know, she's
25:04
Speaker 7: a bit nervous about her film, but it went well
25:07
Speaker 7: her while there is apparently a famous armor okay, so
25:09
Speaker 7: we have that an experienced armor number two, we have
25:12
Speaker 7: the assistant director, one of the ad DP holes. Apparently,
25:16
Speaker 7: according to a report, he was fired from its twenty
25:18
Speaker 7: nineteen production. The movie was freedom passed after crew members
25:22
Speaker 7: suffered guess what a minor injury when a gun unexpectedly.
25:27
Speaker 1: Discharged dominate romano.
25:30
Speaker 2: The words similar transactions are jumping to mind. I mean,
25:36
Speaker 2: this solidifies my thought that this is not an accident,
25:40
Speaker 2: because an accident is when you totally don't see it coming.
25:44
Speaker 1: It's just like out of the blue.
25:46
Speaker 2: But if this guy, if it's correct, the ad had
25:49
Speaker 2: a previous incident, for somebody was shot on a set.
25:53
Speaker 2: Even if it was a minor injury, then you should
25:56
Speaker 2: have seen you either new or should have known. Would
25:58
Speaker 2: you agree with that dominant?
26:00
Speaker 7: They're going to be some serious questions to be asked,
26:05
Speaker 7: and there have to be answers, And if we don't
26:10
Speaker 7: have good answers, someone is either going to be involved
26:13
Speaker 7: in a very expensive lawsuit or depending on what they
26:18
Speaker 7: knew and when they knew it and how careless they were,
26:21
Speaker 7: probably facing some time. The other issue you alluded to
26:24
Speaker 7: earlier is, you know, cost cutting, it's rampant in the
26:27
Speaker 7: industry right now, and the production company's decision not to
26:33
Speaker 7: book the crew hotel rooms near the actual set, but
26:37
Speaker 7: to have them travel an hour in each direction to
26:40
Speaker 7: get to and from their accommodation, to have long hours
26:44
Speaker 7: where people walked off the set earlier that day in protest.
26:48
Speaker 7: So this is a combination of what turned out to
26:52
Speaker 7: be a lethal combination at catastrophic calculation on the part
26:56
Speaker 7: of the production government.
26:57
Speaker 1: Well, you just said a mouthful in a.
27:00
Speaker 2: Good way, between the armorer being an experience, the ad
27:04
Speaker 2: having a prior similar transaction, and budget cuts problems amongst
27:09
Speaker 2: the crew. Take a listen to our cut six that
27:13
Speaker 2: from our friends at News Nation.
27:14
Speaker 12: Now let's start with the people responsible for handling a gun.
27:18
Speaker 12: There are no ubiquitous rules across all film sets, but
27:21
Speaker 12: generally there are some guidelines that they follow and here
27:23
Speaker 12: into a budget.
27:24
Speaker 1: Budget usually plays a big role.
27:26
Speaker 12: In many sets, there are no fewer than three people
27:29
Speaker 12: responsible for monitoring a weapon. Prop Mastercums in charge of
27:32
Speaker 12: all crosts, is often supported by a safety officer and
27:35
Speaker 12: a sub coordinator, and depending on the seat, you may
27:37
Speaker 12: also need to bring in an armorer whose only job
27:40
Speaker 12: is handling weapons.
27:47
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
27:53
Speaker 2: In the Last Days, the lawsuit filed by Alec Baldwin
28:00
Speaker 2: TV movie Superstar against New Mexico prosecutors.
28:05
Speaker 1: Has been dismissed.
28:08
Speaker 2: How did this whole case start anyway, doctor Dupree. I'm
28:14
Speaker 2: sure you, like myself, have had to handle weapons in
28:19
Speaker 2: front of jury's and I learned this from watching a
28:23
Speaker 2: pro try cases. I would always pick the gun up,
28:27
Speaker 2: holding it face down with a barrel pointing to the ground,
28:33
Speaker 2: so the jury or anyone else would.
28:35
Speaker 1: Not be alarmed.
28:36
Speaker 2: What you don't want to do is scare your jury.
28:39
Speaker 2: I would walk in front of the jury holding the
28:42
Speaker 2: weapon nose down, open the chamber, let them see me
28:46
Speaker 2: check it, hold it up like I was examining it
28:49
Speaker 2: through you know, at my eye level, so they could
28:54
Speaker 2: see that it was empty and then shut it and
28:58
Speaker 2: then give it to the witness without fail. Even if
29:03
Speaker 2: it was a weapon that I knew was inoperable, that
29:06
Speaker 2: was sp Why would that not occur on a movie set?
29:13
Speaker 2: But describe how you're supposed to handle weapons exactly.
29:17
Speaker 9: Ancy, You described it perfectly. That is exactly what you
29:20
Speaker 9: should do. And if you're giving a weapon to someone else,
29:23
Speaker 9: normally you have the chamber open so that they can
29:25
Speaker 9: also see and then you both check it and know
29:28
Speaker 9: that it's empty or that the blanks are in it.
29:32
Speaker 2: Tell me what you can discern about what Karen Smith,
29:36
Speaker 2: forensics expert, just told us about the injuries.
29:39
Speaker 1: What happened, Nancy.
29:41
Speaker 8: Even though these are quote prop guns or blanks, they
29:44
Speaker 8: can still obviously do devastating damage the wadding or whatever
29:49
Speaker 8: they are filled with, even in a blank. But this
29:51
Speaker 8: was not a blink. This was an actual projectile.
29:54
Speaker 1: And as we know, you mean a bullet speak English,
29:58
Speaker 1: a bullet.
29:59
Speaker 9: Yes, yes, this is a bullet, and the.
30:02
Speaker 8: Caliber of that bullet of the gun is what is
30:05
Speaker 8: going to determine how much damage is done. As She explained,
30:09
Speaker 8: the higher the caliber, the more energy in that bullet,
30:13
Speaker 8: and so the more damage done to the physical body.
30:16
Speaker 8: And of course the location where that bullet enters the
30:19
Speaker 8: body in this case was devastating.
30:23
Speaker 1: You know, another issue to doctor Sherry Schwartz.
30:24
Speaker 2: I've been on a lot of TV sets, obviously, and
30:27
Speaker 2: movie sets for you know, cameos or some legal issue.
30:33
Speaker 2: And I got to tell you, doctor Sherry Schwartz, a
30:36
Speaker 2: movie set takes on a whole It's like you're in
30:39
Speaker 2: a different world. Like when you go to the movies
30:42
Speaker 2: and you sit down and it goes dark, your mind
30:44
Speaker 2: takes you there when you're on a movie set. I've
30:48
Speaker 2: never been on a single movie set that went on time.
30:52
Speaker 2: You go till one or two o'clock in the morning,
30:55
Speaker 2: it's pitch dark outside. You keep going until you get
30:59
Speaker 2: the shot or you finish this scene, or whatever it's
31:01
Speaker 2: called in movie world.
31:03
Speaker 1: I think that there is a suspended.
31:07
Speaker 2: Fear you think you're at a movie set, like when
31:10
Speaker 2: you go to Disneyland or when you're on vacation on
31:13
Speaker 2: a cruise ship. You suspend your normal thinking it doesn't
31:19
Speaker 2: seem real and you're not thinking, wow, there's a gun
31:22
Speaker 2: I could get shot because it's quote just a movie,
31:26
Speaker 2: it's not real. How do we let me just say,
31:31
Speaker 2: suspend our disbelief, suspend rational rules of functioning when you're
31:36
Speaker 2: on a movie set or in a movie, you know,
31:39
Speaker 2: like in movies where there's some nut with a gun
31:42
Speaker 2: and you hear a sound, but you don't think it's
31:44
Speaker 2: real because you're in a movie.
31:46
Speaker 1: What happens in the human mind, doctor Sherry, Well, when you.
31:50
Speaker 14: Don't think that something is actually real, then you would
31:56
Speaker 14: not calculate accurately what the potential risk are, right, And
32:01
Speaker 14: so there is this gun on the set, but everybody thinks, oh,
32:05
Speaker 14: it's just make believe. We're setting this up to film it.
32:08
Speaker 14: Nobody's actually going.
32:10
Speaker 8: To get hurt. And so what happens mentally is.
32:13
Speaker 14: That you underestimate what the potential risks are. And what
32:17
Speaker 14: happened here is an egregious underestimation, right, So for the
32:22
Speaker 14: rest of us, that's to make believes maybe even for
32:25
Speaker 14: the actor they know that they're just playing a role,
32:27
Speaker 14: and everybody around them might know they're playing a role.
32:30
Speaker 14: But there are people on the set who are responsible
32:33
Speaker 14: for that gun and for taking that proper care and
32:37
Speaker 14: knowing what the potential risks are?
32:39
Speaker 2: Hey, do you Alexis treshat Crime online dot Com investigative reporter,
32:43
Speaker 2: you have heard Dominant Romano Paul's like, well, everyone on
32:47
Speaker 2: the panel weighing in. But apparently there were a lot
32:50
Speaker 2: of problems and a lot of disgruntled crew members. I
32:54
Speaker 2: understand that one of the motels they had set them
32:56
Speaker 2: up to stay overnight was at for the homeless and
33:03
Speaker 2: there were drug addicts there.
33:05
Speaker 1: They were afraid to stay there. What was going on
33:08
Speaker 1: on the set, Well.
33:09
Speaker 13: It seems like what they were trying to do was
33:11
Speaker 13: make this.
33:12
Speaker 4: Film as cheaply as possible. Understandable, but they were putting
33:16
Speaker 4: people's lives at risk. It was fifty hotels were fifty
33:19
Speaker 4: miles away, so after working fourteen hour days, the crew
33:23
Speaker 4: was having to drive over an hour to get to
33:25
Speaker 4: their hotel. Then they would have to be back within
33:27
Speaker 4: like six hours, so they would get almost no sleep
33:29
Speaker 4: at all.
33:30
Speaker 1: But they were also saying that things.
33:31
Speaker 8: Were just not safe.
33:33
Speaker 4: There had been an incident a few days earlier that
33:37
Speaker 4: one of the prop guns again prop done real gun,
33:40
Speaker 4: had been accidentally fired, and so the crew had been
33:44
Speaker 4: complaining to the producer saying this is not a safe
33:47
Speaker 4: working environment, and they walked off the set. And so
33:52
Speaker 4: Hollywood is very much a union business, but the producers
33:57
Speaker 4: hired non union people to replace these nine union people.
34:01
Speaker 4: That are not the people. That's not the armor, and
34:04
Speaker 4: it's not the assistant director. And everybody's been talking there
34:06
Speaker 4: at the line of protocol. You have so many steps
34:11
Speaker 4: in the line of defense, so that when this gun
34:14
Speaker 4: got to Alex Baldwin, at least two other people were
34:17
Speaker 4: responsible for saying that it wasn't loaded.
34:20
Speaker 2: I mean, didn't somebody even scream out cold gun. I
34:25
Speaker 2: mean they have to yell it out, you know what
34:28
Speaker 2: you were just saying. I know so many times for
34:30
Speaker 2: different shoots. I don't know who he is that carries
34:34
Speaker 2: that comes over and they have to do it a
34:37
Speaker 2: certain way. They have to say a certain thing, and
34:41
Speaker 2: they say it really loudly.
34:43
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but I'm.
34:44
Speaker 2: Sure there's a reason for it, just like they would
34:47
Speaker 2: yell out cold gun and.
34:49
Speaker 1: Everybody would hear it.
34:51
Speaker 2: But I guess they yelled it out without checking alexis
34:54
Speaker 2: And there are reports that.
34:55
Speaker 4: Yes, so there were three guns that were set up
34:58
Speaker 4: and they were put on a table out the church set.
35:01
Speaker 4: And this is because of COVID nineteen protocols, so not
35:04
Speaker 4: a lot of people are in the if it's an
35:06
Speaker 4: enclosed set, they're not there three guns. So the assistant
35:10
Speaker 4: director picked it up. Dave Halls as the other guy said,
35:13
Speaker 4: you know, has a history of a lot of accidents
35:16
Speaker 4: on sets, and handed it to volvement and he is
35:19
Speaker 4: the one that yelled out, cold gun. There's no nobody
35:22
Speaker 4: has said there's so many people have spoken to the
35:25
Speaker 4: police on the set, so many of the other crew members,
35:29
Speaker 4: and they said they didn't know whether it actually was
35:33
Speaker 4: empty or not. And these guns were used at lunch.
35:36
Speaker 4: This is a post lunch break, so they broke for
35:38
Speaker 4: lunch at twelve thirty. They come back after lunch. During
35:41
Speaker 4: that lunchtime, there are reports that those crew members were
35:44
Speaker 4: using this gun and other guns to shoot beer bottles
35:48
Speaker 4: out in the desert area and using it as target practice.
35:52
Speaker 4: So there could have been alive and there said there
35:54
Speaker 4: were lots of live ammunition. Nobody was told they couldn't
35:57
Speaker 4: bring live ammunition on sets.
35:59
Speaker 1: That's an o thing that you live around on set.
36:03
Speaker 4: That's a big problem here.
36:04
Speaker 10: And I think, yeah, I'd like to jump in there.
36:08
Speaker 10: It's it's it's simply a breakdown of the security of
36:12
Speaker 10: the scene. The only people there that our arms should
36:14
Speaker 10: be security personnel. And you know, in my years, my
36:18
Speaker 10: decade of fighting to keep workplaces safe and to stop
36:23
Speaker 10: stalking offenders from killing victims, I can tell you one thing,
36:27
Speaker 10: and that is nobody thinks the unthinkable is going to happen.
36:31
Speaker 10: It's a matter of just human thinking. They think that, well,
36:34
Speaker 10: that happened to somebody else, that didn't happen to me.
36:37
Speaker 10: And because this is somewhat of a rare occurrence on
36:40
Speaker 10: a set, people got laxed, they got lacka days hole
36:44
Speaker 10: about fundamental when it comes to shooting a scene such
36:48
Speaker 10: as this. And just like at any workplace, this is
36:51
Speaker 10: a workplace out in the middle of the desert, just
36:53
Speaker 10: like it would be in an office building. Those protocols
36:57
Speaker 10: broke down and people at work thing to do the
37:01
Speaker 10: right thing for the right reasons, had a catastrophic, devastating
37:05
Speaker 10: thing happen, because we as human beings think, well, if
37:09
Speaker 10: it hasn't happened, it won't happen. And that's just not
37:11
Speaker 10: the reality of life when it comes with dangerous events.
37:14
Speaker 2: You know, Alec Baldwin is a great, great actor. A
37:19
Speaker 2: lot of people don't like him because he rubs him
37:22
Speaker 2: the wrong way with his jokes, with his actions with
37:26
Speaker 2: you know, just a history of comments and behavior that
37:33
Speaker 2: irritates some people. But I can tell you this, when
37:37
Speaker 2: I saw the photos of him literally doubled over in grief, I.
37:43
Speaker 1: Don't think that was acting. I think that was real.
37:46
Speaker 2: There's one thing I know about this case. When you
37:49
Speaker 2: think it's over, it rises up again. It seemingly won't
37:54
Speaker 2: go away. What will Alec Baldwin do next? If you're
37:59
Speaker 2: listening like Baldwin, don't kick a gift horse in the mouth,
38:05
Speaker 2: take the dismissal and run and.
38:09
Speaker 1: Never go back. We wait as justice unfolds. Goodbye, friend,