Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Screen Star Alec Baldwin Deadly Shooting: WHAT HAPPENED?

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Screen Star Alec Baldwin Deadly Shooting: WHAT HAPPENED? · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace and what has been billed
0:15
Speaker 1: as an accident. Now a young mother is dead after
0:22
Speaker 1: movie superstar Alex Baldwin, She's what he believes to be
0:27
Speaker 1: a blank, but it is anything but a blank, and
0:32
Speaker 1: now a young woman is dead. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace,
0:49
Speaker 1: tragedy on the film set of a new Alec Baldwin movie,
0:53
Speaker 1: and what police are calling a misfire of a prop
0:56
Speaker 1: gun in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Sheriff's off says
1:00
Speaker 1: there has just confirmed it was Baldwin who fired the
1:04
Speaker 1: prop gun that killed a forty two year old female
1:07
Speaker 1: director of stotography, Helena Hutchins. The film's director, Joel Souza
1:13
Speaker 1: was also hurt. This incident happened on the set of
1:16
Speaker 1: The Western Rust. Now detectives are investigating what type of
1:21
Speaker 1: projectile discharged from this gun. So far, no charges have
1:25
Speaker 1: been filed. Earlier today, Alec Baldwin did post a picture
1:29
Speaker 1: on social media from this set. You were just hearing
1:33
Speaker 1: our Frank Christine Johnson was CBS what really happened. According
1:38
Speaker 1: to reports, the assistant yelled out cold gun just before
1:44
Speaker 1: the shooting, which means the gun was safe that it
1:48
Speaker 1: was loaded with a blank. So how do we have
1:51
Speaker 1: a woman dead, another film person injured? With me and
1:55
Speaker 1: all star panel to make sense of it all? If
1:57
Speaker 1: we can? With me Dominate Romano lawyer joining us out
2:02
Speaker 1: of New York at Romano Law dot Com is specialty
2:05
Speaker 1: entertainment law, and I can tell you somebody's going to
2:07
Speaker 1: need a lawyer. Doctor Sherry Schortz forensics psychologists joining us.
2:12
Speaker 1: Karen L. Smith, forensic expert, host of Shattered Soul's podcast
2:16
Speaker 1: at Beerbuns Forensics dot com. Paul Zike joining us special guest,
2:20
Speaker 1: former police commander and author of Stop Him From Killing
2:25
Speaker 1: Them on Amazon, and he has lots of experience using
2:30
Speaker 1: firearms with blanks during live action movie scenes like Terminator Salvation.
2:37
Speaker 1: Doctor Michelle Dupre forensic pathologists, former medical examiner, author of
2:42
Speaker 1: Homicide Investigation Field Guide, and a former police detective. But
2:47
Speaker 1: first to Alexis Terresschuck Crime Online dot com investigative reporter
2:51
Speaker 1: joining us from Hollywood. Alexis is what is getting folded
2:56
Speaker 1: into the story? Right or wrong? Is Alec Baldwin's history,
3:03
Speaker 1: his reputation for let me just say hot headedness, to
3:09
Speaker 1: put it euphemistically, if he thought it was a blank
3:13
Speaker 1: and it should have been a blank. Then history aside
3:18
Speaker 1: it was an accident, But how can it really be
3:21
Speaker 1: an accident when somebody loaded this prop gun with real bullets.
3:28
Speaker 1: Now just started at the beginning, alexis, did you know
3:30
Speaker 1: the search warrant has just been released and we learned
3:33
Speaker 1: a lot from that, But you go ahead. So they
3:36
Speaker 1: were on a set in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It's
3:38
Speaker 1: a western style movie. So they were sitting in a
3:41
Speaker 1: church and an old church scene and Alec Baldwin was
3:44
Speaker 1: sitting in one of the pews and he was practicing
3:47
Speaker 1: what's called a cross draw, and so that would be
3:50
Speaker 1: where the person they take your left hand and grabs
3:53
Speaker 1: the gun out of the holster on the opposite him,
3:56
Speaker 1: pulled it across to fire. He was practicing this movie
4:00
Speaker 1: standing the cinematographer, which is the person that makes the
4:03
Speaker 1: movie beautiful. This is the person that that films the scene.
4:08
Speaker 1: She was standing in front of him, with the assistant
4:11
Speaker 1: director staring let'm pary, with the director standing right behind her.
4:14
Speaker 1: He was looking over her shoulder to see what it
4:16
Speaker 1: would look like when Alex pulled the gun out. He
4:19
Speaker 1: pulls it out of the side points it at her
4:21
Speaker 1: to show them, pulls the trigger and it fires a
4:25
Speaker 1: live round into her, hits her in the stomach and actually,
4:29
Speaker 1: believe goes through her and grazes the director sitting standing
4:32
Speaker 1: right behind her. Hush has pronounced dead at an Albuquerque
4:36
Speaker 1: hospital after being rushed to the emergency room. You know what,
4:39
Speaker 1: I always love playing nine one one calls for a
4:43
Speaker 1: jury because it takes you back to what's really happening.
4:46
Speaker 1: Not a description, not someone recounting what happened, but you're
4:51
Speaker 1: hearing what really happened. Take a listen to the beginning
4:54
Speaker 1: of that nine one one call the location of your emergency.
5:00
Speaker 1: We need them that we need an ambulist out of
5:02
Speaker 1: financer free glances right now. We've got two people shot
5:05
Speaker 1: on a movie set accidentally, he said, someone was shot.
5:09
Speaker 1: Two people active with gun shot at on movie sets
5:13
Speaker 1: in and the free grants and in a minute often
5:16
Speaker 1: act you with medical detected, don't need us. Who are
5:20
Speaker 1: you calling? What are the roads? Do okay? People station
5:29
Speaker 1: on emergency Financer free grants. People accident always shot on
5:34
Speaker 1: a movie set, top gun. We need out the media
5:38
Speaker 1: like Financa free grants. Come on, say on the phone
5:41
Speaker 1: an organated. Your name, na name Mitchell, just Mitchell, wants
5:48
Speaker 1: upon over. You're calling from five ups. Don't hang up? Okay,
5:57
Speaker 1: hold on just one second. Somebody else's call good, everybody
6:10
Speaker 1: should be we can help us. Director in our camera
6:14
Speaker 1: managemel woman open shots. Now you hear repeatedly the word
6:20
Speaker 1: accident accidentally throughout that. But is it an accident? Very
6:26
Speaker 1: often when you have, for instance, a dui crash, people go, well,
6:31
Speaker 1: it was an accident, But was it because the driver
6:36
Speaker 1: chooses to go to a bar to order drinks, to drink,
6:40
Speaker 1: to become legally intoxicated, to then get the car keys,
6:44
Speaker 1: walk to the car, get in the car, crank up,
6:47
Speaker 1: reverse and drive out onto the roads. That sounds pretty deliberate.
6:53
Speaker 1: So is it an accident? Is it gross negligence? Well,
6:57
Speaker 1: take a listen to more of that nine one one call?
7:00
Speaker 1: Was it loaded with a real bullet? Or will I
7:03
Speaker 1: cannot start you back? Okay? We have two injuries from
7:06
Speaker 1: and Lille doune shot. Okay, we're getting them out there already.
7:10
Speaker 1: Just dam a phone listening thing, okay, because be that
7:17
Speaker 1: yelled at me at once, because that's in about revision.
7:20
Speaker 1: You can't and yell at me, he's such a chested
7:27
Speaker 1: gun think responsible danger now, Miami. No, no, No, I'm
7:31
Speaker 1: a script of supervisor, rare home many before injuries true
7:35
Speaker 1: that I know of. I was sitting, we were rehearsing,
7:37
Speaker 1: and it went off and I ran out. We all
7:39
Speaker 1: ran out. There were doubled over the ID and the
7:43
Speaker 1: camera woman and the direct and the director. We're clearing
7:47
Speaker 1: the red can to come back. We're back on their
7:49
Speaker 1: back in the town. I called them, were back in
7:51
Speaker 1: the west in town. Is there any serious bleeding? I
7:58
Speaker 1: don't know. I ran out of the building, Blane, I
8:01
Speaker 1: still have to go through these Okay, are they compere?
8:03
Speaker 1: We all learned. I'm hearing a lot of discussion in
8:09
Speaker 1: the background. You hear the speaker talking to somebody else
8:13
Speaker 1: about someone yelling at her and lunch about script revision,
8:18
Speaker 1: and she says she's supposed to check the gun. He's
8:21
Speaker 1: responsible for what happened. No, No, I'm a script supervisor,
8:25
Speaker 1: so I don't know a lot about movie sets. I
8:27
Speaker 1: can tell you more about a murder trial, but I
8:29
Speaker 1: know this. A script supervisor should not be checking dangerous
8:34
Speaker 1: weapons crime stories with Nancy Grace with me as Paul
8:53
Speaker 1: Zike not only former police commander and author to stop
8:56
Speaker 1: him from killing them on Amazon, but Twitter, at workplace
9:02
Speaker 1: threats with a screen actors guild, and he has experience
9:07
Speaker 1: using firearms with blanks during live action movie scenes. I
9:11
Speaker 1: could go on, but I think that sums it up
9:13
Speaker 1: for today. Paul's like, thank you for being with us.
9:16
Speaker 1: What went wrong? Obviously there was a live bullet and
9:20
Speaker 1: what should have been a prop gun. But what happened, Nancy?
9:25
Speaker 1: The only explanation for this is a systemic breakdown and
9:29
Speaker 1: systems that are in place to ensure that live ammunition
9:32
Speaker 1: is not present on the set. Okay, now that was
9:36
Speaker 1: a lot of words, Paul's. I think you're saying somebody
9:39
Speaker 1: didn't do their job. Well, absolutely, somebody did not do
9:44
Speaker 1: their job and catastrophically did not do that. There's no
9:47
Speaker 1: reason whatsoever for live ammunition to be on the set
9:51
Speaker 1: of any set, because these weapons are capable of firing
9:54
Speaker 1: live rounds. They're not really prop guns. They're deadly weapons
9:58
Speaker 1: being used as props. Okay, right there, I want to
10:01
Speaker 1: make that distinction. You're absolutely right when look, I'm a
10:05
Speaker 1: trial lawyer, I'm a legal expert. You're the expert in
10:10
Speaker 1: this world. When I say prop gun, I mean they're
10:13
Speaker 1: using it as a prop. But you're making a very fine, subtle,
10:19
Speaker 1: but important distinction. A prop gun is a fake gun.
10:24
Speaker 1: I don't think it even can shoot. Is that right? Exactly?
10:27
Speaker 1: If you're talking about say a prop knife, correct, it
10:30
Speaker 1: has a flat edge on it. It's incapable of cutting you.
10:33
Speaker 1: These are things that are not deemed to be dangerous.
10:36
Speaker 1: A prop gun is simply as utilized on set. Are
10:41
Speaker 1: weapons that are capable of firing live ammunition and therefore
10:45
Speaker 1: accidentally live ammunition could be mixed with blank rounds. You know,
10:50
Speaker 1: given time, this is just a disaster waiting to happen.
10:54
Speaker 1: They need to move to true prop guns that are
10:57
Speaker 1: incapable of chambering live ammunition. Until that happens, this has
11:01
Speaker 1: a very strong chance of repeating itself. Well, okay, tell
11:05
Speaker 1: me this. Paul's eye, Guys, with me Paul's eye. He
11:09
Speaker 1: is a former police commander, He's an author screen actors.
11:13
Speaker 1: Guill And has experienced using blanks during live action movie
11:18
Speaker 1: scenes where we all think they're shooting real guns. If
11:21
Speaker 1: you suspend your disbelief in movies like his Terminator Salvation,
11:26
Speaker 1: those aren't real guns, so why are they using a
11:29
Speaker 1: real gun to start with Paul's eye And I mean,
11:32
Speaker 1: to me, having been forced to handle so many guns
11:37
Speaker 1: and so many homicides, what moron wouldn't make sure that
11:42
Speaker 1: there were blanks in the gun. It's hard to imagine
11:46
Speaker 1: that during the loading of the weapon that was not
11:50
Speaker 1: viewed very strictly as a weapon is loaded. And also
11:54
Speaker 1: there's a chain of custody issue here on the scene
11:57
Speaker 1: of Terminator salvation. As we would go, we would conduct
12:02
Speaker 1: the battle scene, if you will, in the middle of
12:03
Speaker 1: the night. We would be handed directly from the armor
12:07
Speaker 1: fully automatic weapons and magazines, fully loaded with blanks, and
12:12
Speaker 1: we would head straight out to where the scene was
12:15
Speaker 1: to be shot, and then we would engage in the scene,
12:17
Speaker 1: you know, five ten minutes later, hand the weapons straight
12:20
Speaker 1: back to the armor, all the ammunition back to the armor,
12:23
Speaker 1: all the magazines back to the armor, and we would
12:27
Speaker 1: not be able to touch those weapons again until the
12:29
Speaker 1: next scene. So from a chain of cuptody standpoint and
12:32
Speaker 1: went directly from the armor directly to my hand, you know,
12:36
Speaker 1: the co actor's hands that were with me, and that
12:40
Speaker 1: was maintained very strictly hold on Paul, I've got a
12:43
Speaker 1: so key in everything you're saying because dominant Romano, high
12:47
Speaker 1: profile lawyer, joining us out of New York's specialty entertainment law.
12:51
Speaker 1: That's why Dominic's joining us today. Dominic, hold on. When
12:55
Speaker 1: you heard Paul's I say China custody, I immediately thought
12:59
Speaker 1: of a serial murderer that I prosecuted on one murder.
13:02
Speaker 1: We could get him on one and there ended up.
13:06
Speaker 1: I would say three weeks before trial. I was just
13:09
Speaker 1: looking at the evidence and I noticed that the bag
13:12
Speaker 1: that contained the evidence wasn't signed. It had never been
13:17
Speaker 1: signed by the homicide cop that picked it up. It
13:22
Speaker 1: was DNA, and there's blood from where it had been
13:24
Speaker 1: taken and carried to the crime lab. It wasn't written
13:27
Speaker 1: on the back. Did anybody tamper with it? No, he
13:30
Speaker 1: just didn't put his initials. I'm like, oh, dear Lord
13:33
Speaker 1: in Heaven, the chain is broken. This could be attacked
13:36
Speaker 1: at trial. I had to go back out to the
13:39
Speaker 1: jail stand there and look at this killer while we
13:41
Speaker 1: pulled his blood again. Then I carried it with my
13:45
Speaker 1: investigator myself back to the crime lab to have it retested.
13:50
Speaker 1: Praise the Lord in heaven. It was his DNA. Long
13:53
Speaker 1: story short, that's chain of custody. Your case can be lost.
13:57
Speaker 1: You can lose a serial killer because money didn't keep
14:00
Speaker 1: the chain to preserve the integrity of the trial. That's
14:04
Speaker 1: what I thought when Paul Zike said chain of custody.
14:08
Speaker 1: But did you also hear him say dominant romano? He
14:11
Speaker 1: handed it back to the It sounds like he was
14:13
Speaker 1: saying armor or armory. But I've been reading about this case.
14:17
Speaker 1: It's an armor er armor err who is the person
14:22
Speaker 1: in charge of all the weapons? Hey, somebody is either
14:26
Speaker 1: going to jail? Are they going to lose their house
14:29
Speaker 1: over a lawsuit? Dominant Romano? I think you're right, Nancy,
14:32
Speaker 1: and I think Paul is absolutely right. Look in twenty
14:35
Speaker 1: twenty one, no one should ever be killed by a
14:38
Speaker 1: gun on a film set. Period. Those are the words
14:42
Speaker 1: of Brandon Lee's sister. Brandon Lee shot on a film
14:46
Speaker 1: set in the early nineteen nineties. This should not happen.
14:49
Speaker 1: There are established protocols, chains of commend Nancy said, someone
14:54
Speaker 1: either going to jail or lose their house as very
14:57
Speaker 1: likely here. I mean there is There appears to be
15:01
Speaker 1: some serious gross negligence on that set to allow that
15:05
Speaker 1: to That is the appearance. And I don't know what
15:08
Speaker 1: evidence can come out to rebut that presumption a live
15:12
Speaker 1: round in well, as Paul's Ike has corrected me, it's
15:17
Speaker 1: not a prop gun. They were using real guns. Hey,
15:20
Speaker 1: let me ask you a question, Paul's eye. Explain the
15:23
Speaker 1: difference and what a blank looks like as opposed to
15:27
Speaker 1: a live round a bullet. We're saying live rounds, we're
15:30
Speaker 1: talking about a bullet. What's the difference. Can't you just
15:33
Speaker 1: look at them and you can see the difference in
15:36
Speaker 1: most cases, absolutely, it's very clear. You can see the
15:39
Speaker 1: difference in some types of calibers, say two two three,
15:43
Speaker 1: if you will, that's what an AAR fifteen would shoot.
15:46
Speaker 1: The blanks are kind of crimped at the end to
15:52
Speaker 1: almost look like there's a bullet on the end of them.
15:55
Speaker 1: But any sort of trained professional whatsoever, when you're handling
15:58
Speaker 1: a blank, you know what's a blank, and it's a bullet,
16:00
Speaker 1: you know it's a bullet. The blank does not have
16:03
Speaker 1: a lead projectile or a still projectile at the end
16:07
Speaker 1: of the round, So at the end it's either flat
16:10
Speaker 1: or slightly crimped to hold in the gunpowder, which you know,
16:15
Speaker 1: the firearm usually needs the gunpowder to correctly function the
16:20
Speaker 1: weapon and cycle the weapon, and it's one of the
16:23
Speaker 1: reasons why blanks are used. Okay, paul'sy. I really respect you,
16:27
Speaker 1: but you're gonna have to dummy down from me. Okay,
16:30
Speaker 1: because I would have to put you through intensive training
16:33
Speaker 1: before you take the stand. Because a lot of people
16:36
Speaker 1: do not know what you just said. Just think about
16:39
Speaker 1: it and think if there's a way you can say
16:41
Speaker 1: it in more simple terms. What's the difference between a
16:44
Speaker 1: blank and a lie bullet when you look at it?
16:47
Speaker 1: Speak English Man in the meantime, Wait a minute, you
16:51
Speaker 1: mentioned Brandon Lee, and you're absolutely right. We pulled sound
16:55
Speaker 1: of other cases almost identical to this. Is this not
16:59
Speaker 1: the first time it's happened, believe it or not? Tyler?
17:02
Speaker 1: Could you roll our cut forty four? Let's follow up
17:05
Speaker 1: on what Paul Zike said about Brandon Lee. The bullet
17:08
Speaker 1: comes from the killed Brandon Ley. Some believe a piece
17:11
Speaker 1: of a proper bullet without gunpowder, and it may have
17:14
Speaker 1: been left accidentally in the gun blank was fired at Brandon.
17:17
Speaker 1: Some feel it's shot out the proper bullet, mortally wounding him.
17:21
Speaker 1: Though there was an accident waiting to happen. The Crow
17:23
Speaker 1: crewmember we spoke with says that there were many opportunities
17:26
Speaker 1: for an accident to happen. Are the working conditions on
17:29
Speaker 1: the set of The Crow particularly bad? Treely long hours,
17:33
Speaker 1: eighteen hour days back to back at times, pushing ninety
17:38
Speaker 1: hours a week, six day weeks is way too much.
17:41
Speaker 1: Do you think that that overwork, that exhaustion might have
17:46
Speaker 1: resulted in this accident? Jajcautions, all of them were definitely
17:49
Speaker 1: not followed. It could have been prevented, did with better management.
17:54
Speaker 1: The publicist for the movie The Crow denies that the
17:57
Speaker 1: working conditions were insane. Certainly everyone was very tired and
18:01
Speaker 1: exhausted from the shoe, but these are professionals and they're
18:03
Speaker 1: used to working conditions like this. Okay, guys, you were
18:06
Speaker 1: hearing our friends and Inside Edition, and I want to
18:09
Speaker 1: follow up on what we're just hearing with Alexus terres Chuck.
18:12
Speaker 1: I played that sound for a reason, alexis because on
18:16
Speaker 1: the Alec Baldwin set of Rust there apparently were problems
18:21
Speaker 1: with working conditions. A group of the crew had walked out,
18:27
Speaker 1: I think the night before the claiming that they had
18:30
Speaker 1: bad hotels. They were an hour away from a hotel
18:33
Speaker 1: or motel, and if they worked late into the night,
18:36
Speaker 1: they have to drive through I guess the desert, and
18:38
Speaker 1: a lot of them were actually sleeping in their cars overnight.
18:42
Speaker 1: That's just some of the complaints I've heard. But what
18:46
Speaker 1: are the other complaints, if any, on the Alec Baldwin
18:49
Speaker 1: movie set. Well, there have been complaints that things were
18:52
Speaker 1: not safe. Quote, but one of the person is being
18:57
Speaker 1: directly blamed for a lot of the unpage. When you
19:00
Speaker 1: were listening to the nine one one calling, you said,
19:02
Speaker 1: you heard the woman saying that he was yelling at
19:04
Speaker 1: me things like that. This is the assistant director that
19:07
Speaker 1: they're talking about. And this is the assistant director, David Halls,
19:10
Speaker 1: who handed the gun to Baldwin instead this is a
19:14
Speaker 1: cold gun. So what the people on the set were
19:17
Speaker 1: saying is that Halls was not a responsible person. He
19:20
Speaker 1: was very angry, he was making the job very difficult
19:24
Speaker 1: for everybody to do, and they didn't trust him. Wait
19:26
Speaker 1: a minute, you're saying David Halls was an assistant director. Yes, okay,
19:30
Speaker 1: Well what about the honorer. Isn't she the one responsible
19:34
Speaker 1: for all the weapons and the blanks or the bullets. Guys,
19:38
Speaker 1: take another listen to our cut forty three. This is
19:42
Speaker 1: about practically the same thing happening before. Listen. It was
19:47
Speaker 1: here at the Carroll Co. Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina,
19:50
Speaker 1: that actor Brandon Lee was filming The Crow. Ironically, the
19:54
Speaker 1: film is about a man who dies and comes back
19:56
Speaker 1: to life to advanish his death. Shortly after midnight last Tuesday,
20:00
Speaker 1: Brandon Lee was preparing to film a routine action scene
20:04
Speaker 1: in script for him to get shot at as he
20:06
Speaker 1: walked toward door carrying a bag of groceries. Michael Massey,
20:10
Speaker 1: the actor doing the shooting, is reportedly devastated by Lee's
20:14
Speaker 1: death and remains in seclusion. The gunny was using was
20:17
Speaker 1: supposed to be loaded with blanks. The camera's rolled, Brandon
20:21
Speaker 1: Lee was performing for the last time. Literally's heart stopped
20:25
Speaker 1: and efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful. Wednesday afternoon, Brandon
20:30
Speaker 1: Lee was pronounced dead. The autopsy revealed some shocking information.
20:35
Speaker 1: The A forty four caliber bullet was removed from Lee's body.
20:38
Speaker 1: Detectives are proceeding with the investigation. Time stories with Nancy
20:54
Speaker 1: Grace straight out to Karen el Smith or his expert
20:58
Speaker 1: host of Shattered Souls podcast beerbos dot com. Why you
21:02
Speaker 1: and Karen Smith, Well, we deal a lot with forensics
21:05
Speaker 1: in physics. When we do a reconstruction, we use snippets
21:09
Speaker 1: of time and sometimes that can be split seconds, and
21:11
Speaker 1: this includes trajectories of projectiles, and this trajectory can generally
21:16
Speaker 1: be explained by the reporting. Alec Baldwin was reported to
21:19
Speaker 1: be sitting at a church pew to a line of
21:21
Speaker 1: camera angle when the gun was fired. Alina Hutchins then
21:25
Speaker 1: collapsed on the floor and Joel Suza was struck in
21:27
Speaker 1: the clavicles. That's an upward trajectory, which means both Hutchins
21:31
Speaker 1: and Susa were standing up when the event occurred. The projectile,
21:35
Speaker 1: now that has yet to be officially named as a
21:37
Speaker 1: Speciftic caliber bullet or as something else that came out
21:41
Speaker 1: of the gun muzzle that perporated Helena's body and subsequently
21:45
Speaker 1: struck Joel. Now, in order for that to happen, the
21:48
Speaker 1: kinetic energy, which is energy as the result of motion,
21:52
Speaker 1: would be very high. We're dealing with mass or the
21:55
Speaker 1: amount of matter in an object and energy dispersion. Guns
21:59
Speaker 1: carry high volume of energy in a small space and
22:02
Speaker 1: that from my experience, it tells me that it was
22:05
Speaker 1: something other than just the paper or plastic watting from
22:08
Speaker 1: a blank round. That needs to be confirmed by the
22:11
Speaker 1: emmy and the investigators. But there are reports of live
22:15
Speaker 1: ammunition bullets being on the set and that particular gun
22:20
Speaker 1: allegedly being used for target practice that morning. There's a
22:24
Speaker 1: lot of questions that needs to be answered by the
22:25
Speaker 1: investigators and the m again for the set being used
22:30
Speaker 1: as target practice. Paul Zyke, that shouldn't be that you've
22:34
Speaker 1: got crew members out shooting bottles. I think that that's
22:37
Speaker 1: coming out with live bullets and use that same gun
22:43
Speaker 1: for a sane and a church full of people, And Nancy,
22:47
Speaker 1: I just wanted to clarify the prior point. So very simply,
22:50
Speaker 1: a blank is a shellcasing with gunpowder in it with
22:54
Speaker 1: no bullet. A bullet is the same exact thing with
22:58
Speaker 1: more gunpowder and a a live bullet at the end
23:01
Speaker 1: of it that is made to travel through the barrel
23:05
Speaker 1: and exit the weapon. Back to what you were saying
23:08
Speaker 1: at the cardinal rule that's been broken, whether you're whether
23:11
Speaker 1: you're involved in police training or you're involved in a
23:14
Speaker 1: movie set, keeping live ammunition away from weapons that fire
23:19
Speaker 1: live ammunition and keeping weapons at fire blanks away from
23:24
Speaker 1: those instances. And when you mix those two together, the
23:27
Speaker 1: odds of somebody having a spare live round in one
23:30
Speaker 1: of their pockets or you name it is super high,
23:34
Speaker 1: and it sounds very sloppy, and it just opens the
23:40
Speaker 1: door for terrible things to happen. And that's where the
23:43
Speaker 1: systemic breakdown and that controlled environment Jelly and Paul's like,
23:47
Speaker 1: you're right. Super sloppy is one way to put it.
23:50
Speaker 1: Gross negligence or unintentional murder is another way to put it.
23:55
Speaker 1: I think I hear dominant romano jumping in go ahead.
23:58
Speaker 1: Basically it's a catastroph miscalculations. I think two people here
24:02
Speaker 1: should be folks. We should focus on one is the
24:07
Speaker 1: armor like this is only according to reports her second movie,
24:11
Speaker 1: The Chairs Read and the assistant director Day Halls, who
24:14
Speaker 1: you mentioned before. According to reports, he was fired from
24:17
Speaker 1: a twenty nineteen production of Freedom's Past. I don't remember
24:21
Speaker 1: suffered a minor injury. Whoa whoa white white You got
24:25
Speaker 1: me drinking from the fire hut hydro, which is not
24:27
Speaker 1: a bad thing. It's too much at once. Old fly
24:29
Speaker 1: in the world, would you have somebody that was fired
24:32
Speaker 1: off another similar job handling your weapon. Okay, is that
24:37
Speaker 1: what you just said? Dominic? Okay? Almost so almost the
24:41
Speaker 1: Armorers twenty four years old, the person handling the weapons.
24:45
Speaker 1: It's only her second film. She was just in a
24:48
Speaker 1: podcast last month where she said, you know, she's a
24:51
Speaker 1: bit nervous about her film, but it went well. While
24:53
Speaker 1: there is apparently a famous armor okay, so we have
24:56
Speaker 1: that an experienced armor. Number two. We have the assistant director,
25:00
Speaker 1: the add Poles. Apparently, according to a report, he was
25:04
Speaker 1: fired from the twenty nineteen production. The movie was freedom
25:07
Speaker 1: passed after crew members suffered guess what a minor injury
25:12
Speaker 1: when a gun unexpectedly discharged M dominant romano. The words
25:17
Speaker 1: similar transactions are jumping to mind. I mean, if there
25:22
Speaker 1: is a trial, you know that previous incident is going
25:25
Speaker 1: to come in. I mean, this solidifies my thought that
25:31
Speaker 1: this is not an accident, because an accents when you
25:35
Speaker 1: totally don't see it coming. It's just like, ah the blue.
25:38
Speaker 1: But if this guy, if it's correct, the ad had
25:41
Speaker 1: a previous incident where somebody was shot on a set.
25:45
Speaker 1: Even if it was a minor injury, then you should
25:48
Speaker 1: have seen you either new or should have known. Would
25:50
Speaker 1: you agree with that dominant romano. They're going to be
25:53
Speaker 1: some serious questions to be asked, and there have to
25:59
Speaker 1: be answers, and if they're if we don't have good answers,
26:03
Speaker 1: someone is either going to be involved in a very
26:06
Speaker 1: expensive lawsuit or depending on what they knew and when
26:10
Speaker 1: they knew it and how careless they were, probably facing
26:14
Speaker 1: some time. The other issue you alluded to earlier is
26:17
Speaker 1: you know, cost cutting. It it's rampant in the industry
26:20
Speaker 1: right now. We're coming out of a pandemic, and the
26:25
Speaker 1: production company's decision not to book the crew hotel rooms
26:30
Speaker 1: near the actual set, but to have them travel an
26:34
Speaker 1: hour in each direction to get to and from their accommodation,
26:38
Speaker 1: to have long hours where people walked off the set
26:42
Speaker 1: earlier that day in protest. So this is a combination
26:47
Speaker 1: what turned out to be a lethal combination at catastrophic
26:50
Speaker 1: calculation on the part of the production company. Well, you
26:53
Speaker 1: just said a mouthful, all in a good way, betroying
26:57
Speaker 1: the armor or being an experience the ad thing a
27:00
Speaker 1: prior similar transaction and budget cuts problems amongst the crew.
27:05
Speaker 1: Take a listen to our cuts six from our friends
27:08
Speaker 1: at News Nation. Now let's start with the people responsible
27:12
Speaker 1: for handling a gun. There are no ubiquitous rules across
27:15
Speaker 1: all film sets, but generally there are some guidelines that
27:17
Speaker 1: they follow, and here into a budget. Budget usually plays
27:20
Speaker 1: a big role. On many sets, there are no fewer
27:23
Speaker 1: than three people responsible for monitoring a weapon. A prop
27:26
Speaker 1: master froms in charge of all props, is often supported
27:29
Speaker 1: by a safety officer and a stunt coordinator, and depending
27:32
Speaker 1: on the state, you may also need to bring in
27:34
Speaker 1: an armorer whose only job is handling weapons. An armorer
27:38
Speaker 1: is required by New Mexico state law. So the point is,
27:41
Speaker 1: just like Dominant Romano was saying, budget plays a big role, Well,
27:46
Speaker 1: you know what, you can tell that to the victim
27:49
Speaker 1: and the victim's child and husband. Prime Stories with Nancy
28:05
Speaker 1: Grace to you. Doctor Michelle Dupree, forensic pathologist for a
28:12
Speaker 1: Medical Examiner, author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide. I can
28:17
Speaker 1: go on and on, doctor Dupree. I'm sure you, like myself,
28:21
Speaker 1: have had to handle weapons in front of juries, and
28:27
Speaker 1: I learned this from watching a pro try cases. I
28:31
Speaker 1: would always pick the gun up, holding it face down
28:36
Speaker 1: with a barrel, pointing to the ground so the jury
28:40
Speaker 1: or anyone else would not be alarmed. What you don't
28:42
Speaker 1: want to do is scare your jury. I would walk
28:45
Speaker 1: in front of the jury holding the weapon, nose down,
28:49
Speaker 1: open the chamber, let them see me check it, hold
28:53
Speaker 1: it up like I was examining it, you know, at
28:57
Speaker 1: my eye level, so they can see that it was empty,
29:01
Speaker 1: and then shut it and then give it to the
29:04
Speaker 1: witness without fell. Even if it was a weapon that
29:09
Speaker 1: I knew was inoperable, that was sp Why would that
29:17
Speaker 1: not occur on a movie set? But describe how you're
29:20
Speaker 1: supposed to handle weapons exactly, Nancy. You described it perfectly.
29:24
Speaker 1: That is exactly what you should do. And if you're
29:26
Speaker 1: giving a weapon to someone else, normally you have the
29:29
Speaker 1: chamber open so that they can also see, and then
29:32
Speaker 1: you both check it and know that it's empty or
29:35
Speaker 1: that the blanks are in it. Tell me what you
29:38
Speaker 1: can discern about what Karen Smith, forensics expert, just told
29:43
Speaker 1: us about the injuries. What happened, Nancy. Even though these
29:47
Speaker 1: are quote prop guns or blanks, they can still obviously
29:51
Speaker 1: do devastating damage the watting or whatever they are filled with,
29:55
Speaker 1: even in a blink. But this was not a blink.
29:57
Speaker 1: This was an actual projectile. As we know, you mean
30:01
Speaker 1: a bullet speak English cliber a bullet. Yes, yes, this
30:06
Speaker 1: is a bullet. And the caliber of that bullet of
30:09
Speaker 1: the gun is what is going to determine how much
30:12
Speaker 1: damage has done. As she explained, the higher the caliber,
30:16
Speaker 1: the more energy in that bullet, and so the more
30:19
Speaker 1: damage done to the physical body. And of course the
30:22
Speaker 1: location where that bullet enters the body in this case
30:27
Speaker 1: was devastating. You know, another issue to doctor Sherry Schwartz,
30:30
Speaker 1: I've been on a lot of TV sets, obviously in
30:32
Speaker 1: movie sets for you know, cameos or some legal issue.
30:38
Speaker 1: And I gotta tell you that, to Sherry Schwartz, a
30:41
Speaker 1: movie set takes on a whole. It's like you're in
30:44
Speaker 1: a different world. Like when you go to the movies
30:47
Speaker 1: and you sit down and it goes dark, your mind
30:50
Speaker 1: takes you there when you're on a movie set. I've
30:54
Speaker 1: never been on a single movie set that went on time.
30:57
Speaker 1: You go to one or two o'clock in the morning,
31:00
Speaker 1: it's pitch dark outside. You keep going until you get
31:04
Speaker 1: the shot or you finish the scene or whatever. It's
31:07
Speaker 1: called a movie world. I think that there is a
31:11
Speaker 1: suspended fear. You think you're at a movie set, like
31:15
Speaker 1: when you go to Disneyland or when you're on vacation
31:19
Speaker 1: on a cruise ship. You suspend your normal thinking it
31:24
Speaker 1: doesn't seem real and you're not thinking, wow, there's a gun,
31:28
Speaker 1: I could get shot because it's quote just a movie.
31:31
Speaker 1: It's not real. How do we let me just say,
31:36
Speaker 1: suspend our disbelief, suspend rational rules of functioning when you're
31:42
Speaker 1: on a movie set or in a movie. You know,
31:44
Speaker 1: like in a movie is where there's some nut with
31:46
Speaker 1: a gun and you hear a sound, but you don't
31:49
Speaker 1: think it's real because you're in a movie. What happens
31:53
Speaker 1: in the human mind? Doctor Sherry, Well, when you don't
31:56
Speaker 1: think that something is actually real, then you would not
32:02
Speaker 1: calculate accurately what the potential risks are, right, And so
32:07
Speaker 1: there is this gun on the set, but everybody thinks, oh,
32:10
Speaker 1: it's just make believe. We're setting this up to film it.
32:14
Speaker 1: Nobody's actually going to get hurt. And so what happens
32:18
Speaker 1: mentally is that you underestimate what the potential risks are.
32:22
Speaker 1: And what happened here is an egregious underestimation. Right. So
32:27
Speaker 1: for the rest of us. It's to make believes maybe
32:30
Speaker 1: even for the actor, they know that they're just playing
32:32
Speaker 1: a role, and everybody around them might know they're playing
32:35
Speaker 1: a role. But there are people on the set who
32:37
Speaker 1: are responsible for that gun and for taking that proper
32:41
Speaker 1: care and knowing what the potential risks are. By g you,
32:45
Speaker 1: Alexis Teresia Crime online dot Com investigative reporter, you have
32:49
Speaker 1: heard Dominant Romano. Paul's like, well, everyone on the panel
32:53
Speaker 1: weighing in. But apparently there were a lot of problems
32:57
Speaker 1: and a lot of disgruntled crew members understand that one
33:00
Speaker 1: of the motels they had set them up to stay
33:03
Speaker 1: overnight was at a place where the homeless and there
33:08
Speaker 1: were drug addicts there. They were afraid to stay there.
33:13
Speaker 1: What was going on on the set, But it seems
33:15
Speaker 1: like what they were trying to do was make this
33:17
Speaker 1: film as cheaply as possible. Understandable, but they were putting
33:21
Speaker 1: people's lives at risk. It was fiftyse hotels were fifty
33:24
Speaker 1: miles away, so after working fourteen hour days, the crew
33:28
Speaker 1: was having to drive over an hour to get to
33:30
Speaker 1: their hotel. Then they would have to be back within
33:33
Speaker 1: like six hours, so they would get almost no sleep
33:35
Speaker 1: at all. But they were also saying that things were
33:37
Speaker 1: just not safe. There had been an incident a few
33:41
Speaker 1: days earlier that one of the pop guns again prop gun,
33:45
Speaker 1: real gun, had been accidentally fired, and so the crew
33:49
Speaker 1: had been complaining to the producer, saying, this is not
33:51
Speaker 1: a safe working environment, and they walked off the set.
33:56
Speaker 1: And so Hollywood is very much a union in the business,
34:01
Speaker 1: but the producers hired non union people to replace him.
34:05
Speaker 1: These non union people that are not the people. That's
34:08
Speaker 1: not the armorer, and it's not the assistant director. And
34:11
Speaker 1: everybody's been talking. There is a line of protocol. You
34:15
Speaker 1: have so many steps in the line of defense, so
34:18
Speaker 1: that when this gun got to Alice Baldwin, at least
34:21
Speaker 1: two other people were responsible for saying that it wasn't loaded.
34:26
Speaker 1: I mean, didn't somebody even scream out cold gun? Yes?
34:30
Speaker 1: I mean they have to yell it out, you know
34:33
Speaker 1: what you were just saying. I know so many times
34:35
Speaker 1: for different shoots. I don't know who he is that
34:39
Speaker 1: carries that comes over and they have to do it
34:43
Speaker 1: a certain way, they have to say a certain thing,
34:46
Speaker 1: and they say it really loudly. I don't know why,
34:49
Speaker 1: but I'm sure there's a reason for it, just like
34:51
Speaker 1: they would yell out cold gun and everybody would hear it.
34:56
Speaker 1: But I guess they yelled it out without checking Alexis.
34:59
Speaker 1: And there are reports that yes, So there were three
35:02
Speaker 1: guns that were set up and they were put on
35:04
Speaker 1: a table outside the church set. And this is because
35:07
Speaker 1: of COVID nineteen protocols, so not a lot of people
35:10
Speaker 1: are in the if it's an enclosed set, they're not
35:13
Speaker 1: there three guns. So the assistant director picked it up.
35:17
Speaker 1: Dave Halls as the other best said, you know, have
35:19
Speaker 1: a history of a lot of accidents on sets, and
35:23
Speaker 1: handed it to Boldwin and he is the one that
35:25
Speaker 1: yelled out cold gun. There's no nobody has said there's
35:29
Speaker 1: so many people have spoken to the police on the set,
35:32
Speaker 1: so many of the other crew members, and they said
35:35
Speaker 1: they didn't know whether it actually was empty or not.
35:39
Speaker 1: And these guns were used at lunch. This is a
35:41
Speaker 1: post lunch break, so they broke for lunch at twelve thirty.
35:44
Speaker 1: They come back after lunch. During that lunch time, there
35:47
Speaker 1: are reports that the crew members were using this gun
35:51
Speaker 1: and other guns to shoot beer bottles out in the
35:54
Speaker 1: desert area and using it as target practice, so there
35:57
Speaker 1: could have been alive and there said there was lots
36:00
Speaker 1: of live ammunition. Nobody was told they couldn't bring live
36:03
Speaker 1: ammunition on set. That's another thing that that what do
36:06
Speaker 1: you need live round on set? That's a big problem here.
36:09
Speaker 1: And I think I would that Paul jump in. I'd
36:12
Speaker 1: like to jump in there. It's it's it's simply a
36:16
Speaker 1: breakdown of the security of the scene. The only people
36:18
Speaker 1: there that our arms should be security personnel. And you know,
36:22
Speaker 1: in my years, my decade of fighting to keep workplaces
36:26
Speaker 1: safe and to stop stalking offenders from killing victims, I
36:31
Speaker 1: can tell you one thing, and that is nobody thinks
36:34
Speaker 1: the unthinkable is going to happen. It's it's a matter
36:37
Speaker 1: of just humans thinking. They think that, well, that happened
36:40
Speaker 1: to somebody else, that didn't happen to me. And because
36:43
Speaker 1: this is somewhat of a rare occurrence on a set,
36:46
Speaker 1: people got laxed, They got lack of daisical about fundamental
36:51
Speaker 1: when it comes to shooting a scene such as this.
36:54
Speaker 1: And just like at any workplace, this is a workplace
36:57
Speaker 1: out in the middle of the desert, just like it
36:59
Speaker 1: would be in a and an office building, those protocols
37:02
Speaker 1: broke down and people at work attempting to do the
37:06
Speaker 1: right thing for the right reasons, had a catastrophic, devastating
37:10
Speaker 1: thing happened. Because we as human beings think, well, if
37:14
Speaker 1: it hasn't happened, it won't happen. And that's just not
37:16
Speaker 1: the reality of life when it comes to dangerous events.
37:19
Speaker 1: You know, Alec Baldwin is a great, great actor. A
37:24
Speaker 1: lot of people don't like him because he rubs him
37:27
Speaker 1: the wrong way with his jokes, with his actions with
37:31
Speaker 1: you know, just a history of comments and behavior that
37:38
Speaker 1: irritates some people. But I can tell you this, when
37:42
Speaker 1: I saw the photos of him literally doubled over in grief,
37:48
Speaker 1: I don't think that was acting. I think that was real.
37:53
Speaker 1: Who bears the fault of the death of a beautiful
37:57
Speaker 1: young woman. I'm sure her husband a little child are
38:02
Speaker 1: looking for answers. We wait as just as sun falls
38:07
Speaker 1: Nancy Gray's crime Story, signing off good Bye Friend,