Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / 'Rust' Armorer Convicted, Alec Baldwin Next?

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'Rust' Armorer Convicted, Alec Baldwin Next? · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace in the Last Days, the
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Speaker 1: armorer for the movie Rust starring Alec Baldwin is found
0:23
Speaker 1: guilty of homicide and the shooting death of a young
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Speaker 1: wife and mom cinematographer Helena Hutchins. Is Alec Baldwin. Next,
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Speaker 1: I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thanks for being
0:40
Speaker 1: with us here at Crime Stories and on Serious Sex
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Speaker 1: sem one eleven Hannah Goutera's read found guilty of homicide
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Speaker 1: and the shooting death of the Rust cinematographer Helena Hutchins.
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Speaker 1: Gutera's read shows very little emotion, if any, when the
0:58
Speaker 1: verdict was read. Now is Alec Baldwin, the movie and
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Speaker 1: TV star. Next, He's set to go on trial in
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Speaker 1: the same courthouse for manslaughter. That's right, the armorer. That
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Speaker 1: is movie talk for the person in charge of all
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Speaker 1: the guns and explosives use on a movie set. The
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Speaker 1: armorer for the Alec Baldwin movie Rust guilty in the
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Speaker 1: shooting death of Helena Hutchins. The jury determined Gutera's red
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Speaker 1: negligently allowed a live bullet in the gun on the
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Speaker 1: set of the western Baldwin used to shoot dead Helena Hutchins.
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Speaker 1: It just took two hours of deliberations at the courthouse
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Speaker 1: in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for a jury to fine
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Speaker 1: read guilty on manslaughter. They quitted her on charge of
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Speaker 1: tampering with evidence. Now, Guta's red is the daughter of
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Speaker 1: a very well respected industry armorer, thell Reed, and she's
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Speaker 1: facing about two years in jail eighteen months to be exact.
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Speaker 1: She showed no emotion, but one family member did break
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Speaker 1: down in the courtroom. That family member sitting behind Reid.
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Speaker 1: The judge Mary Sumner remanded that means scent Gata's read
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Speaker 1: in custody, telling her the reason is because you're now convicted.
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Speaker 1: It's criminal negligence. It's true, but still a death. Does
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Speaker 1: the verdict against Hannah Gata's read spell trouble for Alec
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Speaker 1: Baldwin When he goes on trial in July in the
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Speaker 1: same courthouse for manslaughter. He faces jail time as well.
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Speaker 1: I found guilty. What do we know?
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Speaker 2: The Sheriff's office there has just confirmed it was Baldwin
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Speaker 2: who fired the prop gun that killed a forty two
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Speaker 2: year old female director of stratography, Helena Hutchins. The film's director,
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Speaker 2: Juel Susa, was also hurt. This incident happened on the
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Speaker 2: side of the Western Rust.
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Speaker 1: You were just hearing our friend Christine John's with CBS
3:01
Speaker 1: what really happened. According to reports, the assistant yelled out
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Speaker 1: cold gun just before the shooting, which means the gun
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Speaker 1: was safe, that it was loaded with a blank. So
3:15
Speaker 1: how do we have a woman, dad, another film person
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Speaker 1: injured with me and all Star panel to make sense
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Speaker 1: of it all? If we can? With me? Dominate Romano
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Speaker 1: lawyer joining us out of New York at Romano Law
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Speaker 1: dot Com is specialty entertainment law, and I can tell
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Speaker 1: you if somebody's going to need a lawyer. Doctor Sherry
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Speaker 1: Schortz forensic psychologists joining us. Karen L. Smith, forensic expert,
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Speaker 1: host of Shattered Soul's podcast at Beerbonesforensics dot com. Paul
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Speaker 1: Zike 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
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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 du Pre
4:04
Speaker 1: forensic pathologists, former medical examiner, author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide,
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Speaker 1: and a former police detective. But first to Alexis Terreschuk
4:15
Speaker 1: Crime Online dot Com investigative reporter joining us from Hollywood.
4:18
Speaker 1: Alexis is what is getting folded into the story, right
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Speaker 1: or wrong? Is Alec Baldwin's history, his reputation for let
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Speaker 1: me just say hot headedness to put it euphemistically. If
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Speaker 1: he thought it was a blank and it should have
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Speaker 1: been a blank, then history aside it was an accident.
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Speaker 1: But how can it really be an accident when somebody
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Speaker 1: loaded this prop gun with real bullets? Just start at
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Speaker 1: the beginning.
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Speaker 3: They were on a set in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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Speaker 3: It's a Western style movie. So they were sitting in
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Speaker 3: a church at an old church scene, and Alex Baldwin
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Speaker 3: was sitting in one of the pews and he was
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Speaker 3: practicing what's called a cross draw. And so that would
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Speaker 3: be where the person say, take your left hand and
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Speaker 3: grabs the gun out of the holster on the opposite hip,
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Speaker 3: pulls it across to fire. He was practicing this move
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Speaker 3: standing the cinematographer, which is the person that makes the
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Speaker 3: movie beautiful. This is the person that the director that
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Speaker 3: films the scene. She was standing in front of him
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Speaker 3: with the assistant director Stumbard, with the director standing right
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Speaker 3: behind her. He was looking over her shoulder to see
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Speaker 3: what it would look like when Alex pulled the gun out.
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Speaker 3: He pulls it out of the side, points it at
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Speaker 3: her to show them, pulls the trigger, and it fires
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Speaker 3: a live round into her. Hits her in the stomach
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Speaker 3: and actually I believe goes through her and grazes the
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Speaker 3: director sitting standing right behind her.
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Speaker 1: Hush is pronounced Dad at an Albuquerque hospital after being
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Speaker 1: rushed to the emergency room. You know what I always
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Speaker 1: love of playing nine one one calls for a jury
6:03
Speaker 1: because it takes you back to what's really happening. Not
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Speaker 1: a description, not someone recounting what happened, but you're hearing
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Speaker 1: what really happened. Take a listen to the beginning of
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Speaker 1: that nine to one one call.
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Speaker 4: On the location of your emergency pointed and that we
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Speaker 4: need and at a Bonanza Creek grants right now. We
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Speaker 4: got to people shot on a mo.
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Speaker 5: Said someone was shot.
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Speaker 4: Two people accidental gun shot on movie steps and wondered
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Speaker 4: often with medical who are you calling?
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Speaker 6: Where are the road.
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Speaker 4: Emergency?
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Speaker 7: Bonanza people accidentally.
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Speaker 5: Shot on a movie.
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Speaker 4: Step by top gun. We need help the immediate, like Fananza
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Speaker 4: free grant, come on.
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Speaker 5: Your name, Let Mitchell.
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Speaker 3: That Mitchell wants.
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Speaker 4: The one where you're calling from five up, don't hang up?
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Speaker 4: Okay one seconds for somebody else is calling for better.
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Speaker 4: Everybody should be need some help us director in our
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Speaker 4: cameraman camera woman.
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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,
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Speaker 1: for instance, a d UI crash, people go, well, it
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Speaker 1: was an accident. But was it because the driver chooses
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Speaker 1: to go to a bar to order drinks, to drink,
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Speaker 1: to become legally intoxicated, to then get the car, key,
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Speaker 1: walk to the car, get in the car, crank up,
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Speaker 1: reverse and drive out onto the roads. That sounds pretty deliberate.
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Speaker 1: So is it an accident? Is it gross negligence? Well,
8:13
Speaker 1: take a listen to more of that nine to one
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Speaker 1: one call.
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Speaker 5: So was it loaded with a real bullet?
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Speaker 4: Or I cannot shot you that? Okay, we have two
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Speaker 4: injuries from the movie gun Shock.
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Speaker 5: Okay, we're getting.
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Speaker 8: Out there already.
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Speaker 5: Just down upone with me.
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Speaker 3: Okay, I did see that yelled at me at lunch.
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Speaker 4: Could ask him about re vision. You can and yell
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Speaker 4: at me he's a succested gun See responsible, I would
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Speaker 4: have to.
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Speaker 3: Answer how many?
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Speaker 4: No, No, no, I'm a super hard people were injured,
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Speaker 4: true that I know of. I was hearing we were
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Speaker 4: rehearsing and it went off and I ran out. We
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Speaker 4: all ran out. There were but doubles over the id
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Speaker 4: and the camera woman and the director and the directors
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Speaker 4: were clearing the road. Can you come back. We're back
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Speaker 4: on the web. We're back in the town to call
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Speaker 4: the way back in the western town.
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Speaker 5: Is there any serious bleeding? I don't know.
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Speaker 4: I ran out of the building, but I still have
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Speaker 4: to go through VESE. Okay, are they completely alert?
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Speaker 1: I'm here A lot of discussion in the background. You
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Speaker 1: hear this speaker talking to somebody else about someone yelling
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Speaker 1: at her and lunch about script revision, and she says
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Speaker 1: she's supposed to check the gun. He's responsible for what happened. No, No,
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Speaker 1: I'm a script supervisor, so I don't know a lot
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Speaker 1: about movie sets. I can tell you more about a
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Speaker 1: murder trial, but I know this, A script supervisor should
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Speaker 1: not be checking dangerous weapons crime stories. With Nancy Grace.
10:07
Speaker 1: In the Last Days, the armorer for the Alec Baldwin
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Speaker 1: movie Rust is found guilty of homicide by a jury,
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Speaker 1: will the next shoe to drop be the conviction of
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Speaker 1: movie star Alec Baldwin. Hannah Gata's Read's defense at trial
10:28
Speaker 1: was basically to blame everybody else but herself, especially Alec Baldwin.
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Speaker 1: Reid's lawyer Jason Bowles kept repeating over and over that Baldwin,
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Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin was the quote big boss on the set
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Speaker 1: that nobody would stand up to, even though he rushed
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Speaker 1: people and ignored safety checks because Rust, on which he
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Speaker 1: was a producer, had a tight budget. The jury heard
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Speaker 1: from the defense Baldwin commissioned the director SUSA to write
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Speaker 1: the script, that Baldwin owns the rights to the script,
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Speaker 1: that he was the lead actor on the movie and
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Speaker 1: was also a producer. Now, the defense lawyer Jason Bowles
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Speaker 1: called his client, Hannah Reid a quote scapegoat for wider
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Speaker 1: failings that led in a Mexico safety regulator to issue
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Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty six thousand dollars fine on the
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Speaker 1: producers for serious safety failings. She's a scapegoat. Well, a
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Speaker 1: jury disagreed. What do we know? Paul Zike joining us
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Speaker 1: special guest, former police commander and author of Stop Him
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Speaker 1: From Killing Them? He's with the Screen Actors Guild and
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Speaker 1: he has experienced using firearms with blanks during live action
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Speaker 1: movie scenes. I could go on, but I think that
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Speaker 1: sums it up for today. Paul Zake, thank you for
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Speaker 1: being with us. What went wrong? Obviously there was a
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Speaker 1: live bullet and what should have been a proper god,
12:00
Speaker 1: but what happened, Nancy?
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Speaker 8: The only explanation for this is a systemic breakdown in
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Speaker 8: systems that are in place to ensure that live ammunition
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Speaker 8: 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 8: Well, absolutely, somebody did not do their job and catastrophically
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Speaker 8: did not do that. There's no reason whatsoever for live
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Speaker 8: ammunition to be on the set of any set. Because
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Speaker 8: these weapons are capable of firing live rounds. They're not
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Speaker 8: 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 prop 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 prop gun is a fake gun. I
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Speaker 1: don't think it even can shoot? Is that right?
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Speaker 8: Exactly? If you're talking about say it prop knife, correct,
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Speaker 8: It has a flat edge on it. It's incapable of
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Speaker 8: cutting you. These are things that are not deemed to
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Speaker 8: be dangerous. A prop gun is simply as utilized on
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Speaker 8: set our weapons that are capable of firing live ammunition
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Speaker 8: and therefore accidentally live ammunition could be mixed with blank rounds.
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Speaker 8: You know, given time, this is just a disaster waiting
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Speaker 8: to happen. They need to move to true guns that
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Speaker 8: are incapable of chambering live ammunition. Until that happens, this
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Speaker 8: has a very strong chance of repeating itself.
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Speaker 1: Well, okay, tell me this. Paul's II guys with me.
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Speaker 8: 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 gil 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 His Terminator Salvation,
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Speaker 1: those aren't real guns. So why are they using a
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Speaker 1: real gun? To start with? Paul Zeike and I mean
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Speaker 1: to me having been forced to handle so many guns
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Speaker 1: and so many homicides, what moron wouldn't make sure that
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Speaker 1: there were blanks in the gun.
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Speaker 8: It's hard to imagine that during the loading of the
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Speaker 8: weapon that that was not viewed very strictly as the
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Speaker 8: weapon is loaded. And also there's a chain of custody
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Speaker 8: issue here on the scene of Terminator Salvation. As we
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Speaker 8: would go out and we would you conduct the battle scene,
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Speaker 8: if you will, in the middle of the night. We
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Speaker 8: would be handed directly from the armor fully automatic weapons
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Speaker 8: and magazines, fully loaded with blanks, and we would head
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Speaker 8: straight out to where the scene was to be shot,
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Speaker 8: and then we would engage in the scene, you know,
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Speaker 8: five to ten minutes later, hand the weapons straight back
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Speaker 8: to the armor, all the ammunition back to the armor,
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Speaker 8: all the magazines back to the armor, and we would
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Speaker 8: not be able to touch those weapons again until the
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Speaker 8: next scene. So from a chain of custody standpoint, I
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Speaker 8: went directly from the armor directly to my hand, my
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Speaker 8: the co actor's hands that were with me, and that
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Speaker 8: was maintained 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 Dominic's
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Speaker 1: joining us today. Dominick, hold on. When you heard Paul's
15:35
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
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Speaker 1: get them on one and there ended up. I would say,
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Speaker 1: three weeks before trial. I was just looking at the
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Speaker 1: evidence and I noticed that the bag that contained the
15:52
Speaker 1: evidence wasn't signed. It had never been signed by the
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Speaker 1: homicide cop that picked it up from It was DNA
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Speaker 1: in 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 forer 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
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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
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Speaker 1: chain to preserve the integrity of the trial. That's what
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Speaker 1: I thought when Paul Zike said chain of custody. But
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Speaker 1: did you also hear him say, Dominic Romano, he handed
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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 person in
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Speaker 1: charge of all the weapons. Hey, somebody is either going
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Speaker 1: to jail. Are they going to lose their house over
17:08
Speaker 1: a lawsuit? Domino Romano.
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Speaker 9: I think you're right, Nancy, and I think Paul is
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Speaker 9: absolutely right. Look in twenty twenty one, no one should
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Speaker 9: ever be killed by a gun on a film set. Period.
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Speaker 9: Those are the words of Brandon Lee's sister. Brandon Lee
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Speaker 9: shot on a film set in the early nineteen nineties.
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Speaker 9: They should not happen. There are established protocols, chains of command.
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Speaker 9: Nancy said, someone would either going to jail or lose
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Speaker 9: their house.
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Speaker 8: It's highly likely here.
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Speaker 9: I mean, there appears to be some serious gross negligence
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Speaker 9: on that set to allow that to have that. That
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Speaker 9: is the appearance, and I don't know what evidence can
17:47
Speaker 9: come out to rebut that.
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Speaker 1: Presumption alive round in well, as paul's Ikus corrected me,
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Speaker 1: it's not a prop gun. They were using real guns. Hey,
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Speaker 1: let me ask you a question. Explain the difference and
18:02
Speaker 1: what a blank looks like as opposed to a live
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Speaker 1: round a bullet. We're saying live rounds, we're talking about
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Speaker 1: a bullet. What's the difference. Can't you just look at
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Speaker 1: them and you can see the difference in.
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Speaker 8: Most cases, absolutely, it's very clear. You can see the difference.
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Speaker 8: In some types of calibers, say two two three if
18:22
Speaker 8: you will, that's an AR fifteen would shoot. The blanks
18:27
Speaker 8: are kind of crimped at the end to almost look
18:31
Speaker 8: like there's a bullet on the end of them. But
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Speaker 8: any sort of trained professional whatsoever, when you're handling a blank,
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Speaker 8: you know it's a blank.
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Speaker 9: When it's a bullet, you know it's a bullet.
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Speaker 8: The blank does not have a lead projectile or a
18:44
Speaker 8: steel projectile at the end of the round, So at
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Speaker 8: the end it's either flat or it's slightly crimped to
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Speaker 8: hold in the gunpowder, which you know, the firearm usually
18:55
Speaker 8: needs the gunpowder to correctly function the weapon cycle, the
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Speaker 8: weapon and.
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Speaker 9: It's one of the reasons why blanks are used.
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Speaker 1: Prosecutors call the armorer for the Alec Baldwin movie Hanicata's
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Speaker 1: read quote sloppy in handling guns and amo, even staying
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Speaker 1: in the opening statement in that prosecutors Jason Lewis, Good
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Speaker 1: Lawyer says she quote routinely left guns and ammo lying
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Speaker 1: around the set unattended, that the gun safe and ammo
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Speaker 1: cart were constantly disorganized. He also said the prospect of
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Speaker 1: live ammunition landing up on a film set is incomprehensible.
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Speaker 1: It should never happen, and he's right. Why do a
19:39
Speaker 1: bunch of movie stars need to have guns with live
19:42
Speaker 1: ammo in them? The jury was even shown photos taken
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Speaker 1: by a crime scene investigator that shows the chaotic way
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Speaker 1: in which the ammunition and guns were stored all the
19:52
Speaker 1: set of Rust. They didn't even have the guns locked
19:55
Speaker 1: away as is standard practices. Images photos trial shows a
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Speaker 1: gun which could have fired live rounds just sitting on
20:04
Speaker 1: top of the cart. Loose rounds of all sorts of
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Speaker 1: calibers were scattered everywhere, and Gatira's Reid actually kept them
20:11
Speaker 1: in a fanny pack with a can of red bull. Okay,
20:16
Speaker 1: that's professional. We now know. Another live round was found
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Speaker 1: in a box of bullets, from which Gatara's reid said
20:24
Speaker 1: she got the AMMO to put in Baldwin's gun. Okay,
20:29
Speaker 1: right there, and there's your guilty verdict. Gatira's reed is
20:32
Speaker 1: stating she got the AMMO, which contained live rounds, to
20:36
Speaker 1: put in Baldwin's gun. Hello, now, even though that round
20:41
Speaker 1: is visibly different to the fake bullets, and even had
20:47
Speaker 1: a bright silver primer on the back, that was something
20:51
Speaker 1: the others didn't have. In one damning moment, a trial
20:56
Speaker 1: corporal Alexandra Handcock from Santa Fe County shri ask Goodtara's
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Speaker 1: reed if the silver primer on that live bullet didn't
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Speaker 1: stick out when she loaded the gun. Good Tarra's reid
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Speaker 1: responds no. The corporal then goes to say, you didn't
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Speaker 1: notice the rest of them were not the same color.
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Speaker 1: She says, no, I would not want her in charge
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Speaker 1: of ammunition, and I want to follow up with Alexis
21:23
Speaker 1: Tereschuk on the Alec Baldwin set of rust. There apparently
21:29
Speaker 1: were problems with working conditions. A group of the crew
21:35
Speaker 1: had walked out, I think the night before the claiming
21:38
Speaker 1: that they had bad hotels, they were an hour away
21:41
Speaker 1: from a hotel or motel, and if they worked late
21:44
Speaker 1: into the night, they have to drive through I guess
21:47
Speaker 1: the desert, and a lot of them were actually sleeping
21:49
Speaker 1: in their cars overnight. That's just some of the complaints
21:53
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,
22:04
Speaker 3: but one of the person is being directly blamed for
22:08
Speaker 3: a lot of the unsafe is when you were listening
22:10
Speaker 3: to the nine one one call and you said you
22:11
Speaker 3: heard the woman saying that he was yelling at me
22:14
Speaker 3: things like that. This is the assistant director that they're
22:16
Speaker 3: talking about. And this is the assistant director, David Halls,
22:20
Speaker 3: who handed the gun to Baldwin and said this is
22:23
Speaker 3: a cold gun.
22:25
Speaker 5: So what the.
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Speaker 3: People on the set were saying is that Halls was
22:28
Speaker 3: not a responsible person. He was very angry, he was
22:32
Speaker 3: making the job very difficult for everybody to do, and
22:35
Speaker 3: they didn't trust him.
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Speaker 1: Wait a minute, you're saying David Halls was an assistant director. Yes, okay,
22:40
Speaker 1: Well what about the honor. Isn't she the one responsible
22:43
Speaker 1: for all the weapons and the blanks or the bullets.
22:47
Speaker 1: Karen L. Smith, forensic expert, host of Shadowed Soul's podcast
22:51
Speaker 1: at Beerbones for instance dot com way in.
22:53
Speaker 10: Karensmith, well, we do a lot with forensics in physics.
22:57
Speaker 10: When we do a reconstruction, we use of time and
23:01
Speaker 10: sometimes that can be split seconds, and this includes trajectories
23:04
Speaker 10: of projectiles, and this trajectory can generally be explained by
23:08
Speaker 10: the reporting. Alec Baldwin was reported to be sitting at
23:11
Speaker 10: a church pew to align a camera angle when the
23:13
Speaker 10: gun was fired. Alena Hutchins then collapsed on the floor
23:17
Speaker 10: and Joel Susa was struck in the clavicles. That's an
23:20
Speaker 10: upward trajectory, which means both Hutchins and Susa were standing
23:23
Speaker 10: up when the event occurred. The projectile that perforated Helena's
23:28
Speaker 10: body and subsequently struck Joels.
23:30
Speaker 1: Now, in order for that to.
23:31
Speaker 10: Happen, the kinetic energy, which is energy as the result
23:35
Speaker 10: of motion, would be very high. We're dealing with mass
23:39
Speaker 10: or the amount of matter in an object and energy dispersion.
23:42
Speaker 10: Guns carry a high volume of energy in a small space,
23:46
Speaker 10: and that from my experience, it tells me that it
23:48
Speaker 10: was something other than just the paper or plastic wadding
23:52
Speaker 10: from a blank round. That needs to be confirmed by
23:55
Speaker 10: the emmy and the investigators. But there are reports of
23:58
Speaker 10: live ammunition bullets being on the bet and that particular
24:03
Speaker 10: gun allegedly being used for target practice that morning.
24:07
Speaker 1: A gun for the set being used as target practice.
24:11
Speaker 1: Paul zeike that that shouldn't be that you've got crew
24:14
Speaker 1: members out shooting bottles. I think that that's coming out
24:19
Speaker 1: with live bullets and use that same gun for a
24:23
Speaker 1: sane and a church full of people.
24:26
Speaker 8: And Nancy, I just want to clarify the prior point,
24:29
Speaker 8: so very simply, a blank is a is a shellcasing
24:33
Speaker 8: with gunpowder in it with no bullet. A bullet is
24:36
Speaker 8: the same exact thing with more gunpowder and a live
24:40
Speaker 8: bullet at the end of it that is made to
24:43
Speaker 8: travel through the barrel and exit the weapon. Back to
24:47
Speaker 8: what you were saying, that's the cardinal rule that's been broken,
24:50
Speaker 8: whether you're whether you're involved in police training or you're
24:53
Speaker 8: involved in a movie set, keeping live ammunition away from
24:58
Speaker 8: weapons that fire live ami indition and keeping weapons at
25:02
Speaker 8: fire blanks away from those instances, and when you mix
25:06
Speaker 8: those two together, the odds of somebody having a spare
25:09
Speaker 8: live round in one of their pockets or you name
25:12
Speaker 8: it is super high and saying it sounds very sloppy,
25:16
Speaker 8: and it just just opens the door for terrible things
25:21
Speaker 8: that happen. And that's where the systemic breakdown and that
25:25
Speaker 8: controlled environment.
25:26
Speaker 1: We'm jelling you, Paul Zike, You're right. Super sloppy is
25:29
Speaker 1: one way to put it. Gross negligence or unintentional murder
25:34
Speaker 1: is another way to put it. I think I hear
25:36
Speaker 1: Dominic Ramano jumping in. Go ahead.
25:37
Speaker 9: Yeah, basically it's a catastrophic miscalculation. I think two people
25:42
Speaker 9: here should be folks. We should focus on one is
25:47
Speaker 9: the armor? Right? This is only according to reports her
25:50
Speaker 9: second movie with Cheers Read and the assistant director Dave
25:54
Speaker 9: Haul's you mentioned before. According to reports, he was fired
25:57
Speaker 9: from a twenty nineteen production of Freedom's Past members suffered
26:01
Speaker 9: a my minor injury.
26:02
Speaker 1: Whoa whit a minute? Why why white white You got
26:05
Speaker 1: me drinking from the fire high hydrant, which is not
26:07
Speaker 1: a bad thing. It's too much at once. Hold on,
26:09
Speaker 1: why in the world would you have somebody that was
26:12
Speaker 1: fired off another similar job handling your weapon? Okay, is
26:17
Speaker 1: that what you just said, Dominic.
26:18
Speaker 9: Okay, almost so almost. The armorer is twenty four years old,
26:24
Speaker 9: the person handling the weapons. It's only her second film.
26:27
Speaker 9: She was just in a podcast where she said, you know,
26:30
Speaker 9: she's a bit nervous about her film, but it went well.
26:32
Speaker 9: Her father is apparently a famous armor Okay, so we
26:35
Speaker 9: have that an experienced armor. Number two, we have the
26:37
Speaker 9: assistant director known as the AD Dave Holes. Apparently, according
26:42
Speaker 9: to a report, he was fired from the twenty nineteen production.
26:45
Speaker 9: The movie was freedom passed after crew members suffered guess
26:49
Speaker 9: what a minor injury when a gun unexpectedly discharged.
26:54
Speaker 1: M Dominic Ramano, there were similar transactions are jumping to mind.
27:00
Speaker 1: I mean, if there is a trial, you know that
27:03
Speaker 1: previous incident is going to come in. I mean, this
27:08
Speaker 1: solidifies my thought that this is not an accident, because
27:13
Speaker 1: an accident when you totally don't see it coming, it's
27:16
Speaker 1: just like out of the blue. But if this guy,
27:18
Speaker 1: if it's correct, the AD had a previous incident where
27:21
Speaker 1: somebody was shot on a set. Even if it was
27:24
Speaker 1: a minor injury, then you should have seen. You either
27:28
Speaker 1: new or should have known. Would you agree with that?
27:30
Speaker 1: Dominic Romano there going to be some serious.
27:35
Speaker 9: Questions to be asked, and there have to be answers.
27:39
Speaker 9: And if we don't have good answers, someone is either
27:44
Speaker 9: going to be involved in a very expensive lawsuit or
27:47
Speaker 9: depending on what they knew and when they knew it
27:50
Speaker 9: and how careless they were, probably facing some time. The
27:54
Speaker 9: other issue you alluded to earlier is, you know, cost cutting,
27:58
Speaker 9: it's rampant in the industry right now, and the production
28:02
Speaker 9: company's decision not to book the crew hotel rooms near
28:07
Speaker 9: the actual set, but to have them travel an hour
28:10
Speaker 9: in each direction to get to and from their accommodation,
28:14
Speaker 9: to have long hours where people walked off the set
28:18
Speaker 9: earlier that day in protest. So this is a combination
28:23
Speaker 9: of what turned out to be a lethal combination at
28:25
Speaker 9: catastrophic calculation on the part of the production company.
28:29
Speaker 1: Well, you just said a mouthful, all in a good way.
28:32
Speaker 1: Between the armorer being an experience, the ad having a
28:36
Speaker 1: prior similar transaction, and budget cuts problems amongst the crew.
28:41
Speaker 1: Take a listen to our cut six that are from
28:44
Speaker 1: our friends at News Nation.
28:45
Speaker 6: Now let's start with the people responsible for handling a gun.
28:49
Speaker 6: There are no ubiquitous rules across all film sets, but
28:52
Speaker 6: generally there are some guidelines that they follow, and here
28:55
Speaker 6: into a budget don't usually plays a big role. In
28:57
Speaker 6: many sets, there are no fewer than three people responsible
29:01
Speaker 6: for monitoring a weapon.
29:02
Speaker 9: A prop master.
29:02
Speaker 6: Who's in charge of all cross is often supported by
29:05
Speaker 6: a safety officer and a stunt coordinator. And depending on
29:08
Speaker 6: the state, you may also need to bring in an
29:10
Speaker 6: armorer whose only job is handling weapons. An armorer is
29:14
Speaker 6: required by New Mexico state law.
29:16
Speaker 1: So the point is, just like Dominic Ramona was saying,
29:20
Speaker 1: budget plays a big role, Well, you know what, you
29:22
Speaker 1: can tell that to the victim and the victim's child
29:27
Speaker 1: and husband. Prime Stories with Nancy Grace. After one guilty
29:44
Speaker 1: verdict by a jury in the shooting death of cinematographer
29:48
Speaker 1: Helena Hutchins, will the next you to drop be the
29:53
Speaker 1: conviction of movie star Alec Baldwin now Guta's read at trial.
29:59
Speaker 1: The jury was also shown behind the scenes videos from filming,
30:03
Speaker 1: and it showed what firearms experts claim are gross breaches
30:10
Speaker 1: of safety. One shows Guitarra's Reed holding a shotgun with
30:15
Speaker 1: the muzzle face up, pointing straight at her own face.
30:19
Speaker 1: Is she crazy? In another scene called on video, a
30:23
Speaker 1: male actor points a gun at a twelve year old
30:26
Speaker 1: boy who was part of the cast. Especially chilling now
30:30
Speaker 1: that we know there were live rounds on the set
30:33
Speaker 1: out a twelve year old boy. What more do we know?
30:38
Speaker 1: Doctor Michelle Duprex, forensic pathologists, former medical examiner, author of
30:43
Speaker 1: Homicide Investigation Field Guide, and a former police detective. Doctor Duprix,
30:49
Speaker 1: I'm sure you, like myself, have had to handle weapons
30:54
Speaker 1: in front of jury's and I learned this from watching
30:58
Speaker 1: a pro trycases. I would always pick the gun up,
31:03
Speaker 1: holding it face down with a barrel pointing to the ground,
31:08
Speaker 1: so the jury or anyone else would not be alarmed.
31:11
Speaker 1: What you don't want to do is scare your jury.
31:15
Speaker 1: I would walk in front of the jury holding the
31:17
Speaker 1: weapon nose down, open the chamber, let them see me
31:22
Speaker 1: check it, hold it up like I was examining it
31:25
Speaker 1: through you know, my eye level, so they can see
31:30
Speaker 1: that it was empty, and then shut it and then
31:34
Speaker 1: give it to the witness without fail. Even if it
31:38
Speaker 1: was a weapon that I knew was inoperable, that was
31:42
Speaker 1: sp Why would that not occur on a movie set?
31:49
Speaker 1: But describe how you're supposed to handle weapons.
31:52
Speaker 5: Exactly answer, you described it perfectly. That is exactly what
31:55
Speaker 5: you should do. And if you're giving a weapon to
31:57
Speaker 5: someone else, normally you have the chamber open so that
32:00
Speaker 5: they can also see, and then you both check it
32:04
Speaker 5: and know that it's it's empty or that the blanks
32:06
Speaker 5: are in it.
32:07
Speaker 1: Tell me what you can discern about what Karen Smith,
32:11
Speaker 1: forensics expert, just told us about the injuries. What happened Nancy.
32:16
Speaker 5: Even though these are quote prop guns or blanks, they
32:20
Speaker 5: can still obviously do devastating damage the wadding or whatever
32:24
Speaker 5: they are filled with, even in a blank. But this
32:27
Speaker 5: was not a blank. This was an actual projectile. And
32:30
Speaker 5: as we know, you mean.
32:31
Speaker 1: A bullet speak English, a bullet.
32:34
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, this is a bullet. And the caliber of
32:38
Speaker 5: that bullet of the gun is what is going to
32:41
Speaker 5: determine how much damage is done. As she explained, the
32:45
Speaker 5: higher the caliber, the more energy in that bullet, and
32:49
Speaker 5: so the more damage done to the physical body. And
32:51
Speaker 5: of course the location where that bullet enters the body
32:55
Speaker 5: in this case was devastating.
32:58
Speaker 1: You know, another issue to dot to Sherry. I've been
33:00
Speaker 1: on a lot of TV sets, obviously in movie sets
33:03
Speaker 1: for you know, cameos or some legal issue. And I
33:08
Speaker 1: got to tell you, doctor Sherry Schwartz, a movie set
33:12
Speaker 1: takes on a whole It's like you're in a different world.
33:16
Speaker 1: Like when you go to the movies and you sit
33:18
Speaker 1: down and it goes dark. Your mind takes you there
33:22
Speaker 1: when you're on a movie set. I've never been on
33:25
Speaker 1: a single movie set that went on time. You go
33:28
Speaker 1: till one or two o'clock in the morning, it's pitch
33:31
Speaker 1: dark outside. You keep going until you get the shot
33:35
Speaker 1: or you finish the scene, or whatever it's called in
33:37
Speaker 1: movie world. I think that there is a suspended fear
33:44
Speaker 1: you think you're at a movie set, like when you
33:46
Speaker 1: go to Disneyland or when you're on vacation on a
33:49
Speaker 1: cruise ship. You suspend your normal thinking it doesn't seem
33:54
Speaker 1: real and you're not thinking, wow, there's a gun I
33:58
Speaker 1: could get shot because it's quote just a movie. It's
34:02
Speaker 1: not real. How do we let me just say, suspend
34:07
Speaker 1: our disbelief, suspend rational rules of functioning when you're on
34:12
Speaker 1: a movie set or in a movie, you know, like
34:14
Speaker 1: in movies where there's some nut with a gun and
34:18
Speaker 1: you hear a sound, but you don't think it's real
34:20
Speaker 1: because you're in a movie. What happens in the human mind?
34:24
Speaker 1: Doctor Sherry, Well, when.
34:25
Speaker 7: You don't think that something is actually real, then you
34:31
Speaker 7: would not calculate accurately what the potential risks are, right,
34:36
Speaker 7: And so there is this gun on the set, but
34:40
Speaker 7: everybody thinks, oh, it's just make believe. We're setting this
34:42
Speaker 7: up to film it. Nobody's actually going to get hurt.
34:46
Speaker 7: And so what happens mentally is that you underestimate what
34:51
Speaker 7: the potential risks are. And what happened here is an
34:54
Speaker 7: egregious underestimation, right, So for the rest of us, it's
34:58
Speaker 7: make believes. Maybe even for the actor. They know that
35:02
Speaker 7: they're just playing a role, and everybody around them might
35:04
Speaker 7: know they're playing a role. But there are people on
35:07
Speaker 7: the set who are responsible for that gun and for
35:10
Speaker 7: taking that proper care and knowing what the potential risks are.
35:14
Speaker 1: Bet g You, Alexis Tereshia at Crime online dot Com
35:17
Speaker 1: investigative reporter. You have heard dominant Romano. Paul's like, well,
35:21
Speaker 1: everyone on the panel weighing in, but apparently there were
35:25
Speaker 1: a lot of problems and a lot of disgruntled crew members.
35:29
Speaker 1: I understand that one of the motels they had set
35:32
Speaker 1: them up to stay overnight was at a place for
35:35
Speaker 1: the homeless, and there were drug addicts there. They were
35:41
Speaker 1: afraid to stay there. What was going on on the set.
35:45
Speaker 3: It seems like what they were trying to do was
35:46
Speaker 3: make this film as cheaply as possible. Understandable, but they
35:51
Speaker 3: were putting people's lives at risk. It was fifty's hotels
35:54
Speaker 3: were fifty miles away, so after working fourteen hour days,
35:57
Speaker 3: the crew was having to drive over and hour to
36:00
Speaker 3: get to their hotel. Then they would have to be
36:02
Speaker 3: back within like six hours, so they would get almost
36:04
Speaker 3: no sleep at off. But they were also saying that things.
36:07
Speaker 5: Were just not safe.
36:09
Speaker 3: There had been an incident a few days earlier that
36:12
Speaker 3: one of the prop guns again prop done real gun
36:16
Speaker 3: had been accidentally fired, and so the crew had been
36:19
Speaker 3: complaining to the producer saying this is not a safe
36:22
Speaker 3: working environment, and they walked off the set. And so
36:27
Speaker 3: Hollywood is very much a union business, but the producers
36:33
Speaker 3: hired non union people to replace them. These none union people, though,
36:37
Speaker 3: are not the people. That's not the armor, and it's
36:39
Speaker 3: not the assistant director.
36:41
Speaker 10: And everybody's been.
36:41
Speaker 3: Talking there at a line of protocol. You have so
36:45
Speaker 3: many steps in the line of defense, so that when
36:48
Speaker 3: this gun got to Alex Baldwin, at least two other
36:52
Speaker 3: people were responsible for saying that it wasn't loaded.
36:56
Speaker 1: I mean, didn't somebody even scream out cold yes. I
37:00
Speaker 1: mean they have to yell it out, you know what
37:03
Speaker 1: you were just saying. I know so many times for
37:06
Speaker 1: different shoots. I don't know who he is that carries
37:10
Speaker 1: it comes over and they have to do it a
37:13
Speaker 1: certain way. They have to say a certain thing, and
37:16
Speaker 1: they say it really loudly. I don't know why, but
37:19
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a reason for it, just like they
37:22
Speaker 1: would yell out cold gun and everybody would hear it.
37:26
Speaker 1: But I guess they yelled it out without checking alexis.
37:29
Speaker 3: And there are reports that yes there. So there were
37:31
Speaker 3: three guns that were set up and they were put
37:34
Speaker 3: on a table outside the church set. And this is
37:37
Speaker 3: because of COVID nineteen protocols, so not a lot of
37:39
Speaker 3: people are in the if it's an inclosed set, they're
37:43
Speaker 3: not there three guns. So the assistant director picked it up,
37:47
Speaker 3: is Dave Halls. As the other guest said, you don't
37:49
Speaker 3: have a history of a lot of accidents on sets,
37:53
Speaker 3: and handed it to Badlin and he is the one
37:55
Speaker 3: that yelled out cold gun. There's no nobody has said
37:58
Speaker 3: there's so many people have spoken to the police on
38:02
Speaker 3: the set, so many of the other crew members, and
38:04
Speaker 3: they said they didn't know whether it actually was empty
38:08
Speaker 3: or not. And these guns were used at lunch. This
38:11
Speaker 3: is a post lunch break, so they broke for lunch
38:13
Speaker 3: at twelve thirty. They come back after lunch. During that lunchtime,
38:17
Speaker 3: there are reports that those crew members were using this
38:20
Speaker 3: gun and other guns to shoot beer bottles out in
38:24
Speaker 3: the desert area and using it as target practice. So
38:27
Speaker 3: there could have been alive and there said there were
38:30
Speaker 3: lots of live ammunition. Nobody was told they couldn't bring
38:33
Speaker 3: live ammunition on set.
38:35
Speaker 1: That's another thing that do you need you live round
38:37
Speaker 1: on set.
38:38
Speaker 3: That's a big problem here.
38:39
Speaker 1: And I think I've seen is that Paul jump in.
38:42
Speaker 8: I'd like to jump in there. It's it's simply a
38:46
Speaker 8: breakdown of the security of the scene. The only people
38:48
Speaker 8: there that our arms should be security personnel. And you know,
38:52
Speaker 8: in my years, my decade of fighting to keep workplaces
38:56
Speaker 8: safe and to stop stalking offenders from killing victims, I
39:01
Speaker 8: can tell you one thing and that is, nobody thinks
39:04
Speaker 8: the unthinkable is going to happen. It's a matter of
39:08
Speaker 8: just human thinking. They think that, well, that happened to
39:10
Speaker 8: somebody else, that didn't happen to me. And because this
39:13
Speaker 8: is somewhat of a rare occurrence on a set, people
39:17
Speaker 8: got laxed, They got lackadaisical about fundamental when it comes
39:22
Speaker 8: to shooting a scene such as this. And just like
39:25
Speaker 8: at any workplace, this is a workplace out in the
39:28
Speaker 8: middle of the desert, just like it would be in
39:30
Speaker 8: an office building, those protocols broke down, and people at work,
39:35
Speaker 8: attempting to do the right thing for the right reasons,
39:38
Speaker 8: had a catastrophic, devastating thing happen. Because we as human
39:43
Speaker 8: beings think, well, if it hasn't happened, it won't happen.
39:46
Speaker 8: And that's just not the reality of life when it
39:48
Speaker 8: comes to dangerous events.
39:49
Speaker 1: A chaotic, shambolic movie set lies a wife and a
39:56
Speaker 1: mother dead. The movie armorer Hannigateer's read guilty on negligent
40:06
Speaker 1: involuntary homicide. Is movie star Alec Baldwin the next to
40:11
Speaker 1: go down? We wait as just as Unfalds Goodbye friend,