I can empathize that this sucks to go through because I haven’t read anything to suggest she had murderous intent, but even accidents have consequences. There have to be penalties for setting up dangerous conditions to make sure that happens as rarely as possible. It’s why charges like “involuntary manslaughter” exist.
While this was technically an accident, I put it in the same league as driving drunk and killing someone. It was preventable by doing the bare minimum of what her job responsibilities were.
I agree and that’s why I finished by saying even these situations, where there’s no intent, have to be prosecuted and punished. While I empathize with making mistakes (having made my own albeit none nearly so serious) I still think there’s a good reason she’s headed to prison.
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It’s “an accident” in the same way getting shit faced and going for a cross country drive and wrecking is “an accident”.
She violated pretty much every safety regulation, and I believe was even getting drunk and shooting the prop guns on set with live bullets. She was definitely shooting them on set, I just don’t know if they proved she was doing it while drunk.
A drunk driver doesn’t mean to kill anyone either. But most don’t say it was just an accident and try to emphasize with the irresponsible sociopath who got someone killed because they thought they knew more than the law.
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This is a WORK place accident, not an at home or social thing.
She was staying after work and shooting live ammo out of the guns used on set…
There is evidence someone was also drinking because she had empty containers in her vehicle along with the live ammo.
They didn’t need to prove she was drinking to find her guilty, but she said she was still “hungover” when she did it.
I’m not sure how much experience you have with alcoholics, but when they say they’re “hungover” they’re usually still legally drunk too. Often they had a drink first thing after waking up to take off the edge.
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Well, I tried…
She (correctly) beat an evidence tampering charge on reasonable doubt, because the person Reed handed a white baggie of powder to, threw it away - after the shooting happened.
If she’s actively using narcotics (why else have it on her?) and working as a set armorer, that is a massive dereliction of duty irrespective of drug laws. She needs treatment absolutely, but as set armorer it is your responsibility ultimately, and there was live ammo that fired on set that day. That is her responsibility, Baldwin’s culpability for firing/“pointing” the gun remains to be determined.
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Back in 2010 an Officer in my state killed 1 motorcyclist and injured two others while drunk driving on the job. He was eventually sentenced to 4 years in prison for that.
By comparison 18 months seems reasonable for her crime.
She wasn’t qualified to do a very specific job she was hired specifically to do. The people who hired her are also at fault, but her very actions and incompetence at her duties lead to a shooting and death. You don’t just shrug and say oops, accidents happen if a certified electrician or utility worker messes up so badly they burn your house down.
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And she will do more time in prison for manslaughter then every rich person who has committed manslaughter and never see a day behind bars.
Intent is part of the law. Yours was a crime committed with intent, her’s was a crime committed by negligence.
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I’m not arguing the merit of the law itself, I’m just saying that doing something that you know to be against the law is inherently going to generally get you a harsher punishment than causing harm via negligence.
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Well yeah. That’s why there’s any legal punishment at all. Being bad at your job otherwise would just get you fired.
Your honor, when I took on ‘Rust,’ I was young and naive. But I took my job as seriously as I knew how to,"
Why say this?
Because she is still young and naive.
And she took the court proceedings as seriously as she knew how to?
It’s the “I’m just a little guy” defense strategy.
Because sometimes it works.
She really only had ONE job. She failed.
a fall guy to the producers who brought a bunch of non union workers on set during a strike. obviously she fucked up, but this isn’t just on her, she was at work.
This is a dumb take. Her only job was to make sure the weapons are safe, and she had live ammo on set. The producers may share some of the blame with her, but she’s no fall guy.
She was also supposedly complaining about the judge and jury on her recorded phone calls. The judge sounded incandescent with rage while sentencing her to the maximum of 18 months. In another jurisdiction manslaughter could land you many years in prison.
She additionally lacked remorse. She was feeling sorry for herself and how this conviction would adversely affect her own modeling career.
I think 18 months was very little all things considered.
interesting that it was actually a white dude in a position with considerable power who discharged the firearm, maybe Baldwin could have checked the gun too.
If i’m caught accidentally shooting someone with live ammunition can I blame the last person who held the weapon, or is it my responsibility to check it myself?
Alec Baldwin shot an killed a woman ffs, and the buck has stopped with some low level minion.
Baldwin’s fault was for hiring subpar staff that were not qualified to perform their duties. And he’s just as culpable for the death on set as the other producers and people calling the shots.
With that said, no, a person he assumed was more knowledgeable about firearms than himself handed him a weapon, told him it was safe and loaded with blanks, and he believed them. In that circumstance, he was not responsible for the fatal discharge, and your straw man is not relevant or hold water, as this wasn’t just a stranger handing him a loaded weapon, this was a paid (supposedly) professional armorer whose entire job description encompasses safe and best practices of firearms on set.
While what you said is factual, this also was the very specific reason she was brought to the set: the safe and professional handling of firearms and firearm analogous props. Her entire job was to ensure no one got shot. 18 months for manslaughter is a slap on the wrist.
That’s fine. They need to prosecute the producers as well.
Oh absolutely, this was a complete failure from top to bottom on responsibilities and best practices. The level of incompetence on display here is at a level where I would hesitate to let this team manage a bake sale, let alone run around with dead weapons to try and make their little picture seem cool.
So she didn’t bring live rounds on set and put those live rounds in a prop gun intended for actors in a movie?
Hire scabs, get scabs results.
This wasn’t a scab hire, it was a nepotism hire.
Nobody seems to be blaming the producer of the movie for hiring these people. The producer is also the man who shot the gun
The producer is rich and famous.
Last time I saw a discussion on this, someone said it’s been literally over 100 years since the last time someone died on set from a live gun being fired. There are so many rules and regulations in place I can understand why a producer would assume things are just automatically going to be fine no matter what.
Granted, that’s the kind of “taking things for granted” attitude that leads to counties repealing fluoride requirements for municipal water. People get so accustomed to things working well that they forget it takes work to keep it working.
You’re thinking of 1915’s The Captive, in which an extra was killed but there was also 1993, Brandon Lee in The Crow where a .44 bullet was left in the gun and a blank loaded behind it.
Or 1984’s The Cover Up in which Jon-Erik Hexum shot himself in the head with a blank, but the force of the blast killed him.
Considering the amount of (bad) TV they produced, and being an entertainment venue does Maldondo who shot himself at The Tiger King’s park count, too?
I did mean The Captive, yes. I knew there were instances of death by blanks, but didn’t realize one of them involved love ammo too.
If you mean the one during The Crow that didn’t involve live ammo either. The gun was loaded with dummy cartridges used for closeups that contained only primer but did have a bullet. Someone pulled the trigger on one and the primer was enough to propel the bullet into the barrel. Later in the production it was loaded with blanks but procedures weren’t followed and no one checked the barrel for obstructions.
And from my reading, it doesn’t look like anyone was ever charged in that case. Was that referenced at all in this case?
50:30 in case anyone just wants the sentencing part, but the lead up is more rewarding. She doesn’t react much to the sentence itself.
Yea, you can tell during her statement that she made it more about her and I knew that would bite her in the ass. Sure enough, the judge caught it.
This wouldn’t have happened with a Go armourer, just saying.
She can do that easy
Now do Baldwin.
