May 3, 2025 • 37 mins
After two people were shot on the set of Rust, many predicted that the Alec Baldwin produced movie would simply remain unfinished.
Director of photography Halyna Hutchins died, and director Joel Souza was wounded. Reports say first assistant director David Halls picked up one of three prop guns set up by armorer Hannah Gutierrez and yelled, “cold gun.”
"Cold gun" is industry slang meaning the gun does not contain live rounds. Halls gave the gun to Baldwin, who used it to rehearse a scene. According to the search warrant, Baldwin aimed the weapon at the camera when he fired, striking Hutchins and Souza.
Reports suggest crew members used the weapon for target practice earlier that morning.
A judge dismissed charges against Baldwin. The actor sued and launched a reality show. Now he's back on 100 big screens across the country.
Joining Nancy Grace today:
- Paul Szych – Former Police Commander; Author: “Stop Him From Killing Them” on Amazon Kindle; Twitter: @WorkplaceThreat; Screen Actors Guild-Eligible Actor
- Domenic Romano – NY Corporate Lawyer and Entertainment Attorney, Romano Law
- Dr. Shari Schwartz – Forensic Psychologist (Specializing in Capital Mitigation and Victim Advocacy); Author: “Criminal Behavior” and “Where Law and Psychology Intersect: Issues in Legal Psychology;” X: @TrialDoc”
- Karen L. Smith – Forensic Expert, Lecturer at the University of Florida, Host of ‘Shattered Souls’ Podcast; Twitter: @KarensForensic
- Dr. Michelle DuPre – Former Forensic Pathologist, Medical Examiner and Detective: Lexington County Sheriff’s Department, Author: “Homicide Investigation Field Guide” & “Investigating Child Abuse Field Guide;” Forensic Consultant
- Alexis Tereszcuk - CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The Alec Baldwin movie Rust
is actually out. Surprisingly, let me say shockingly, after the
shooting death of a beautiful young mom a cinematographer on
(00:24):
the set, Helena Hutchins, they went forward with the movie. Okay,
I'm Nancy Grace, this is Crime Stories. Thank you for
being with us. I almost said the weight is over.
But was anyone actually waiting for this movie. It's been
almost four years after a gun held by Alec Baldwin,
(00:47):
loaded with live AMMO, was shot, killing an extremely talented cinematographer,
Helena Hutchins on the set, and now that movie, after
so many court actions, has made it to theaters. I'm
(01:07):
not a film a critic. The reviews had been mediocre
and O the word is it's very hard to watch
the movie because all you can think about is Lena Hutchins.
You know a lot of many, many films had been
shelved by studios for reasons much less serious than this.
(01:30):
But an average movie that resulted in the shooting death
of a young mom will now be in cinemas for
everyone to view. What happened on that set.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Tragedy on the film set of a new Alec Baldwin
movie and what police are calling a misfire of a
prop gun in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Sheriff's office
there has just confirmed it was Baldwin who fired the
prop gun that killed a forty two world female director
of photography Helena Hutchins. The film's director, Joel Souza, was
(02:07):
also hurt. This incident happened on the side of the
Western Rust. Now detectives are investigating what type of projectile
discharged from this gun?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
You were just hearing our friend Christine Johnson was CBS
what really happened. According to reports, the assistant yelled out
cold gun just before the shooting, which means the gun
was safe, that it was loaded with a blank. So
how do we have a woman, dad, another film person injured?
(02:39):
With me an all star panel to make sense of
it all? If we can? With me? Dominic Romano lawyer
joining us out of New York at Romano Law dot
Com is specialty entertainment law, and I can tell you
somebody's going to need a lawyer. Doctor Sherry Schwartz forensic
psychologists joining us. Karen L. Smith, forensic expert, host of
Shattered Soul's podcast, at Meerbones Forensics dot Com. Paul Zeke
(03:04):
joining US special guest, former police commander and author of
Stop Him From Killing Them on Amazon, and he has
lots of experience using firearms with blanks during live action
movie scenes like Terminator Salvation, Doctor Michelle Dupre forensic pathologists,
(03:24):
former medical examiner, author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide, and
a former police detective. But first to Alexis Terreschuk, Crime
online dot com investigative reporter joining us from Hollywood, Alexis
is what is getting folded into the story, right or wrong?
Is Alec Baldwin's history, his reputation for let me just
(03:51):
say hot headedness to put it euphemistically. If he thought
it was a blank and it should have been a blind,
then history aside it was an accident, But how can
it really be an accident when somebody loaded this prop
gun with real bullets. Just start at the beginning.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
They were on a set in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
It's a western style movie. So they were sitting in
a church at an old church scene, and Alex Baldwin
was sitting in one of the pewes and he was
practicing what's called a cross draw and so that would
be where the person takes your left hand and grabs
the gun out of the holster on the opposite hip,
(04:34):
pulls it across to fire. He was practicing this move
standing the cinematographer, which is the person that makes the
movie beautiful.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
This is the person that.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Films the scene. She was standing in front of him,
with the assistant director stand lembard, with the director standing
right behind her. He was looking over her shoulder to
see what it would look like when Alex.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Pulled the gun out.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
He pulled it out of the side, points it out
at her to show them, pulls the trigger, and it
fires a live round into her, hits her in the
stomach and actually goes through her and grazes the director
sitting standing right behind her.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Hush has pronounced dead at an Albuquerque hospital after being
rushed to the emergency room. You know what, I always
love playing nine one one calls for a jury because
it takes you back to what's really happening. Not a description,
not someone recounting what happened, but you're hearing what really happened.
Take a listen to the beginning of that nine to
(05:33):
one one call.
Speaker 5 (05:35):
We did watch the location of your emergency at banda
creek grant. Right now, we've got to people shot on accidentally.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
She said someone was shot.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
Two people accidentally shot on movie steps and and the
creek grant. I wondered, often I do with the medical
DECI who are you calling?
Speaker 6 (06:00):
Clear the road?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Don't hire any emergency Fanasa three grand people accidentally shot
on a gourby steps.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
Five top gun. We need help immediately, Fananasy three grants come?
They almost phone or okay, what is your name man Mitchell?
That Mitchell wants the phone where you're calling from?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Five up?
Speaker 7 (06:34):
Don't hang up?
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Okay, hold on just one second. Sounds like somebody else
is calling calling better miss. Everybody should be we can
help us. Director in our camera managed camera woman shot.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Now you hear repeatedly the word accident accidentally throughout that.
But is it an accident? Very often when you have,
for instance, a dui crash, people go, well, it was
an accident, but was it because the driver chooses to
go to a bar to order drinks, to drink to
(07:18):
become legally intoxicated, to then get the car keys, walk
to the car, get in the car, crank up, reverse
and drive out onto the roads. That sounds pretty deliberate.
So is it an accident? Is it gross negligence? Well,
take a listen to more of that nine to one
one call.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
So was it loaded with a real bullet or I
cannot start you up? Okay, we have two injuries to
come and movie done us. Okay, we're getting.
Speaker 8 (07:48):
Out there already.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
Just down up on listening thing. Okay, I see that
yelled at me at lunch out in the value vision
can and yell at me. He's a subtructed gun. He's
responsible for how many No? No, no, I'm super hardy
(08:11):
as true that.
Speaker 6 (08:13):
I know of.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
I was hearing you were a hurtant and it went
off and I ran out. We all ran out. There
were bubles over the ID and the camera woman and
the direct and the directors were clearing the road to
come back. We're back on the web. We're back in
the town. If you called there back in the western town.
Is there any serious bleeding?
Speaker 8 (08:36):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
I ran out of the building, but I still have
to go through these Okay, are they completely.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Alert on the I'm here a lot of discussion in
the background. You hear this speaker talking to somebody else
about someone yelling at her and luch about script revision,
and she says she's supposed to shut the gun. He's
responsible for what happened. No, No, I'm a script supervisor
(09:08):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The late arrival of the
movie Rust is the capstone of a horrible, horrible fact scenario.
There was an outpouring of grief when Helena Hutchins was
(09:30):
shot dead, leaving behind a little boy and now a widower.
Then came years of trials against Baldwin and the armorer
responsible for the weapons and the props on the set,
Hannah Gata's Red. It resulted in Gatara's read getting a
slap on the wrist, eighteen months behind bars in Alex
(09:53):
Baldwin's case being thrown out of court. Wow, just when
you think it's over. The is featured on one hundred
screens around the country. What happened to Helena Hutchins? Paul'sake,
Thank you for being with us? What went wrong? Obviously
(10:15):
there was a live bullet and what should have been
a prop gun, But what happened?
Speaker 6 (10:20):
Nancy? The only explanation for this is a systemic breakdown
and systems that are in place to ensure that live
ammunition is not present on the set.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Okay, now that was a lot of words, Paul's I
think you're saying somebody didn't do their job.
Speaker 6 (10:37):
Well, absolutely, somebody did not do their job and catastrophically
did not do that. There's no reason whatsoever for live
ammunition to be on the set of any set. Because
these weapons are capable of firing live rounds. They're not
really prop guns. They're deadly weapons being used as props.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Okay, hold on right there, I want to make that distinction.
You're absolute right when look, I'm a trial lawyer, I'm
a legal expert. You're the expert in this world. When
I say prop gun, I mean they're using it as
a prop. But you're making a very fine, subtle, but
(11:16):
important distinction. A prompt gun is a fake gun. I
don't think it even can shoot.
Speaker 6 (11:22):
Is that right exactly? You're talking about? Say it prop nice? Correct,
It has a flat edge on it, it's incapable of
cutting you. These are things that are not deemed to
be dangerous. A prop gun is simply as utilized on set.
Our weapons that are capable of firing live ammunition, and
therefore accidentally live ammunition could be mixed with blank rounds.
(11:46):
You know, given time, this is just a disaster waiting
to happen. They need to move to true prop guns
that are incapable of chambering live ammunition. Until that happens,
this has a very strong chance repeating itself.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Well, okay, tell me this, Paul Zake, guys with me.
Paul Zike. He is a former police commander. He's an
author screen actors gil and has experience using blanks during
live action movie scenes where we all think they're shooting
real guns. If you suspend your disbelief in movies like
his Terminator Salvation, those aren't real guns. So why are
(12:25):
they using a real gun to start with? Paul Zike
And I mean to me, having been forced to handle
so many guns and so many homicides, what moron wouldn't
make sure that there were blanks in the gun.
Speaker 6 (12:41):
It's hard to imagine that during the loading of the
weapon that that was not viewed very strictly as a
weapon is loaded. And also there's a chain of custody
issue here on the scene of Terminator Salvation.
Speaker 9 (12:56):
As we would go out and we would conduct the
battle scene if you will, in the middle of the night,
we would be handed directly from the armor, fully automatic
weapons and magatizines, fully loaded with blanks, and we would
head straight out to where the scene was to be shot,
and then we would engage in the scene, you know,
five ten minutes later, hand the weapons straight back to
(13:17):
the armor, all the ammunition back to the armor, all.
Speaker 6 (13:20):
The magazines back to the armor, and we would not
be able to touch those weapons again until the next scene.
So from a chain of custody standpoint, I went directly
from the armor directly to my hand, my you know,
the co actor's hands that were with me, and that
was maintained very strictly pulled on.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Paul, I've got to soak in everything you're saying, because
Dominic Romano a high profile lawyer joining us out of
New York's specialty entertainment law. And that's why Dominic's joining
us today. Dominic hold on. When you heard Paul's like, say,
China custody, I immediately thought of a serial murderer that
I prosecuted on one murder. We could get them on
(14:00):
one and ended up I would say, three weeks before trial.
I was just looking at the evidence and I noticed
that the bag that contained The evidence wasn't signed. It
had never been signed by the homicide cop that picked
it up from It was DNA in There was blood
(14:21):
from where it had been taken and carried to the
crime lab. It wasn't written on the back. Did anybody
tamper with it? No, he just didn't put his initials.
I'm like, Oh, dear Lord in Heaven, the chain is broken.
This could be attacked at trial. I had to go
back out to the jail, stand there and look at
this killer while he pulled his blood again. Then I
(14:41):
carried it with my investigator myself back to the crime
lab to have it retested. Praise the Lord in Heaven.
It was his DNA. Long story short, that's chain of custody.
Your case can be lost. You can lose a serial
killer because somebody didn't keep the chain to preserve the
integrity of the trial. That's what I thought when Paul
(15:03):
Zaike scept chain of custody. But did you also hear
him say dominic romano he handed it back to the
It sounds like he was saying armor or armory. But
I've been reading about this case. It's an armor er,
armor er who is the person in charge of all
the weapons, and.
Speaker 10 (15:21):
I think Paul is absolutely right. Look, no one should
ever be killed by a gun on a film set period.
Those are the words of Brandon Lee's sister. Brandon Lee
shot on a film set in the early nineteen nineties.
This should not happen. There are established protocols, chains of
commend I mean, there appears to be some serious gross
(15:44):
negligence on that set to allow that to have that.
That is the appearance, and I don't know what evidence
can come out to rebut.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
That presumption alive round in well, as Paul Zyke has
corrected me, it's not a prop gun. They were using
real guns. Hey, let me ask you a question, Paul's ike.
Explain the difference and what a blank looks like as
opposed to a live round a bullet. We're saying live rounds,
we're talking about a bullet. What's the difference. Can't you
(16:15):
just look at them and.
Speaker 6 (16:16):
You can see the difference In most cases, absolutely, it's
very clear. You can see the difference. In some types
of calibers, say two two three, if you will, that's
what an AR fifteen would shoot. The blanks are kind
of crimped at the end to almost look like there's
a bullet on the end of them. But any sort
(16:38):
of trained professional whatsoever, when you're handling a blank, you
know it's a blank. When it's a bullet, you know
it's a bullet. The blank does not have a lead
projectile or a steel projectile at the end of the round,
So at the end it's either flat or it's slightly
crimped to hold in the gunpowder, which you know, the
(16:58):
firearm usually needs the gun powder to correctly function the
weapon and cycle the weapon, and it's one of the
reasons why blanks are used.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Okay, Paul Zyke, I really respect you, but you're gonna
have to dumb me down for me, okay, because I
would have to put you through intensive training before you
took the stand because a lot of people do not
know what you just said. Just think about it and
think you there's a way you can say it in
more simple terms. What's the difference between a blank and
a lie bullet when you look at it? Speak English
(17:31):
man in the meantime. Wait a minute, you mentioned Brandon Lee,
and you're absolutely right. We pulled sound of other cases
almost identical to this. This is not the first time
it's happened. Believe it or not, Tyler, could you roll
our cut forty four? Let's follow up on what Paul
Zyke said about Brandon Lee.
Speaker 11 (17:50):
That's a bully compound that killed Brandon Lee. Some believe
a piece of a croplyd without gunpowder, and it may
have been left accidentally in the gun. Blank was fired
at Brand and in some field let's shot out the properly,
mortally wounding him.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
Though it was an accident waiting to happen.
Speaker 11 (18:05):
The Crow crewmember we spoke but says that there were
many opportunities for an accident to happen.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Are the working conditions.
Speaker 7 (18:11):
On the set of The Crow particularly bad? Threely long hours,
eighteen hour days back to back at times pushing ninety
one hundred hours a week, six day weeks is way
too much. Do you think that that over work, that
exhaustion might have resulted in this accident? Stage your conscience
olive them were definitely not called. It could have been
(18:33):
prevented with better management.
Speaker 11 (18:37):
The publicist for the movie The Crow denies that the
working conditions were insane.
Speaker 12 (18:41):
Certainly everyone was very tired and exhausted from the shoe,
but these are professionals and they're used to working conditions
like this.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Okay, guys, you were hearing our friends and inside Edition,
and I want to follow up on what we're just
hearing with Alexis Tereschuk. I played that sound for a reason, Alexis,
because on the Alec Baldwin said of rust, there apparently
were problems with working conditions. A group of the crew
had walked out I think the night before the claiming
(19:11):
that they had bad hotels. They were an hour away
from a hotel or motel and if they worked late
into the night, they have to drive through I guess
the desert and a lot of them were actually sleeping
in their cars overnight. That's just some of the complaints
I've heard. But what are the other complaints, if any
on the Alec Baldwin movie set.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Well, there have been complaints that things were not safe quote.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
But one of the the person is.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Being directly blamed for a lot of the unfaked is
when you were listening to the nine one one calling
you said you heard the woman saying that he was
yelling at me things like that. This is the assistant
director that they're talking about, and this is the assistant director,
David Hall who handed the gun to Baldwin and said,
this is a cold gun. So what the people on
the set were saying is that Halls was not a
(20:01):
responcable person. He was very angry. He was making the
job very difficult for everybody to do, and they didn't
trust him.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Wait a minute, you're saying, David Halls was an assistant director. Yeah, okay,
Well what about the honorer? Is she the one responsible
for all the weapons and the blanks or the bullets? Guys,
take another Listen to our cut forty three. This is
about practically the same thing happening before. Listen.
Speaker 11 (20:29):
It was here at the Carrol Coast Studios in Wilmington,
North Carolina, that actor Brandon Lee was filming The Crow.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Ironically, the film.
Speaker 11 (20:36):
Is about a man who dies and comes back to
life to advanish his death. Shortly after midnight last Tuesday,
Brandon Lee was preparing to film a routine action scene
the script for him to get shot at as he
walks through door carrying a bag of groceries. Michael Massey,
the actor doing the shooting, is reportedly devastated by Lee's
death and remains in seclusion.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
The gunny was using supposed to be loaded with blanks.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
From the camera's role. Brandon Lee was performing for the
last time.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Not only can you drive to a theater and see Russ,
you can pay about fifteen dollars for an at home purchase. Okay,
would you want to why you and Karen Smith?
Speaker 13 (21:18):
Well, we deal a lot with forensics in physics. When
we do a reconstruction, we use snippets of time and
sometimes that can be split seconds, and this includes trajectories
of projectiles, and.
Speaker 8 (21:29):
This trajectory can generally be explained by the reporting. Alec
Baldwin was reported to be sitting at a church pew
to align a camera angle when the gun was fired.
Alena Hutchins then collapsed on the floor and Joel Susa
was struck in the clavicles. That's an upward.
Speaker 13 (21:44):
Trajectory, which means both Hutchins and Susa were standing up
when the event occurred. The projectile that perforated Helena's body
and subsequently struck Joel.
Speaker 8 (21:53):
Now, in order for that to happen, the kinetic energy,
which is energy.
Speaker 13 (21:58):
As the result of motion, would be very high. We're
dealing with mass or the amount of matter in an
object and energy dispersion.
Speaker 8 (22:06):
Guns carry a high volume of energy. In a small space,
and that from.
Speaker 13 (22:10):
My experience, it tells me that it was something other.
Speaker 8 (22:13):
Than just the paper or elastic wadding from a blank round.
That needs to be.
Speaker 13 (22:18):
Confirmed by the emmy and the investigators. But there are
reports of live ammunition bullets being on the set and
that particular gun allegedly being used for target practice that morning.
There's a lot of questions that needs to be answered
by the investigators and them.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Again for the set being used as target practice. Paul Zeike,
that shouldn't be that you've got crew members out shooting bottles.
I think that that's coming out with live bullets and
use that same gun for a sane and a church
full of people.
Speaker 6 (22:54):
And Nancy, I just want to clarify the prior point,
so very simply, a blank is a is a shellcasing
with gunpowder in it with no bullet. A bullet is
the same exact thing with more gunpowder and a live
bullet at the end of it that is made to
travel through the barrel and exit the weapon. Back to
(23:15):
what you were saying, that's the cardinal rule that's been broken,
whether you're whether you're involved in police training or you're
involved in a movie set keeping live ammunition away from
weapons that fire live ammunition, and keeping weapons at fire
blanks away from those instances. And when you mix those
two together, the odds of somebody having a spare live
(23:37):
round in one of their pockets or you name it
is super high. And it sounds very sloppy, and it
just just opens the door for terrible things to happen.
And that's where the systemic breakdown and that controlled environment.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I'm Jolliet Paul Zyke. You're right. Super sloppy is one
way to put it. Gross negligence or unintentional murder is
another way to put it. I think I hear Dominic
Ramano jumping in go ahead.
Speaker 10 (24:05):
Yeah, basically it's a catastrophic miscalculation. I think two people
here should be folks. We should focus on one is
the armor like this is only According to reports, her
second movie with jaris Read and the assistant director Dave
Hall's you mentioned before. According to reports, he was fired
from a twenty nineteen production of Freedom's Past. I first
(24:28):
member suffered a minor injury.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
WHOA why why white white? You got me drinking from
the fire hydrant, which is not a bad thing. It's
too much at once old on. Right in the world,
would you have somebody that was fired off another similar
job handling your weapon? Okay? Is that what you just said? Dominic?
Speaker 10 (24:46):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Almost so almost.
Speaker 10 (24:48):
The armorer is twenty four years old. The person handling
the weapons, it's only her second film. She was just
in a podcast last month where she said, you know,
she's a bit nervous about her but it went well.
While there's apparently a famous armor okay, so we have
that an experienced armor number two, we have the assistant director,
one of the ad dve Holes. Apparently, according to a report,
(25:11):
he was fired from the twenty nineteen production. The movie
was Freedom passed after crew members suffered guess what a
minor injury when a gun unexpectedly.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Discharged dominate romano. The words similar transactions are jumping to mind.
I mean, this solidifies my thought that this is not
an accident, because an accident is when you totally don't
see it coming. It's just like out of the blue.
But if this guy, if it's correct, the ad had
(25:43):
a previous incident where somebody was shot on a set.
Even if it was a minor injury, then you should
have seen you either new or should have known. Would
you agree with that dominate Romano.
Speaker 10 (25:54):
There going to be some serious questions to be asked,
and there have to be answers, and we don't have
good answers. Someone is either going to be involved in
a very expensive lawsuit or, depending on what they knew
and when they knew it and how careless they were,
(26:15):
probably facing some time. The other issue you alluded to
earlier is cost cutting. It's rampant in the industry right now,
and the production company's decision not to book the crew
hotel rooms near the actual set, but to have them
travel an hour in each direction to get to and
(26:35):
from their accommodation, to have long hours where people walked
off the set earlier that day in protest. So this
is a combination of what turned out to be a
lethal combination at catastrophic calculation on the part of the
production company.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Well, you just said a mouthful, all in a good way,
betraying the armor or being an experienced ad having a
prior similar transaction, and budget cuts problems amongst the crew.
Take a listen to our cut six that are from
our friends at News Nation.
Speaker 12 (27:08):
Now let's start with the people responsible for handling a gun.
There are no ubiquitous rules across all film sets, but
generally there are some guidelines that they follow and here
into a budget. Budget usually plays a big role. In
many sets, there are no fewer than three people responsible for.
Speaker 6 (27:24):
Monitoring a weapon.
Speaker 12 (27:25):
Prop Mastercums in charge of all cropts, is often supported
by a safety officer and a SUN coordinator, and depending
on the state, you may also need to bring in
an armorer whose only job is handling weapons. An armorer
is required by New Mexico state law.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace because many critics believe the
tragedy of Helena's shooting death overpowers anything that might be
good about movie. What happened? What really happened that day
on the set of Rust, Doctor Dupree, I'm sure you,
(28:09):
like myself, have had to handle weapons in front of jurys,
and I learned this from watching a pro try cases.
I would always pick the gun up, holding it face
down with a barrel pointing to the ground, so the
jury or anyone else would not be alarmed. What you
(28:30):
don't want to do is scare your jury. I would
walk in front of the jury holding the weapon nose down,
open the chamber, let them see me check it, hold
it up like I was examining it through, you know,
at my eye level, so they could see that it
was empty, and then shut it and then give it
(28:52):
to the witness without fail. Even if it was a
weapon that I knew was inoperable. That was soop. Why
would that not occur on a movie set? But describe
how you're supposed to handle weapons exactly, Nancy.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
You described it perfectly. That is exactly what you should do.
And if you're giving a weapon to someone else, normally
you have the chamber open so that they can also see,
and then you both check it and know that it's
empty or that the blanks.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Are in it. Tell me what you can discern about
what Karen Smith, forensics expert, just told us about the injuries.
What happened, Nancy.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Even though these are quote prop guns or blanks, they
can still obviously do devastating damage the wadding or whatever
they are filled with, even in a blank.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
But this was not a blank.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
This is an actual projectile.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
And as we know, you mean a bullet speak English,
a bullet.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
Yes, yes, this is a bullet and the caliber of
that bullet of the gun is what is going to
determine how how much damage is done. As she explained,
the higher the caliber, the more energy in that bullet,
and so the more damage done to the physical bodies.
And of course the location where that bullet enters the
(30:13):
body in this case was devastating.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
You know, another issue to doctor Sherry Schwartz. I've been
on a lot of TV sets, obviously in movie sets
for you know, cameos or some legal issue. And I
got to tell you, doctor Sherry Schwartz, a movie set
takes on a whole It's like you're in a different world.
Like when you go to the movies and you sit
down and it goes dark, your mind takes you there. Well,
(30:40):
you're on a movie set. I've never been on a
single movie set that went on time. You go till
one or two o'clock in the morning, it's pitch dark outside.
You keep going until you get the shot or you
finish the scene, or whatever it's called in movie world.
I think that there is a suspended fear you think
(31:02):
you're at a movie set, like when you go to
Disneyland or when you're on vacation on a cruise ship.
You suspend your normal thinking. It doesn't seem real and
you're not thinking, Wow, there's a gun I could get
shot because it's quote just a movie, it's not real.
How do we, let me just say, suspend our disbelief,
(31:26):
suspend rational rules of functioning when you're on a movie
set or in a movie, you know, like in movies
where there's some nut with a gun and you hear
a sound, but you don't think it's real because you're
in a movie. What happens in the human mind, doctor Sherry.
Speaker 14 (31:43):
Well, when you don't think that something is actually real,
then you would not calculate accurately what the potential risks are, right,
And so there is this gun on the set, but
everybody thinks, oh, it's just make believe. We're setting this
up to film it. Nobody's actually going to get hurt.
(32:04):
And so what happens mentally is that you underestimate what
the potential risks are. And what happened here is an
egregious underestimation.
Speaker 8 (32:15):
Right, So for the rest of us, that's to make believes.
Speaker 14 (32:17):
Maybe even for the actor, they know that they're just
playing a role, and everybody around them might know they're
playing a role. But there are people on the set
who are responsible for that gun and for taking that
proper care and knowing what the potential risks are.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Do you, Alexis Treesha Crime online dot Com investigative reporter,
you have heard Dominant Romano Paul's like, well, everyone on
the panel weighing in. But apparently there were a lot
of problems and a lot of disgruntled crew members. I
understand that one of the motels they had set them
up to stay overnight was at a place for the homeless,
(32:55):
and there were drug addicts there. They were afraid to
stay there. What was going on on the set, Well, it.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Seems like what they were trying to do was make
this film as cheaply as possible. Understandable, but they were
putting people's lives at risk. It was fiftyse hotels were
fifty miles away, so after working fourteen hour days, the
crew was having to drive over an hour to get
to their hotel. Then they would have to be back
within like six hours, so they would get almost no
sleep at all. But they were also saying that things
(33:25):
were just not safe. There had been an incident a
few days earlier that one of the prop guns again
prop done real gun, had been accidentally fired and so
the crew has been complaining to the producer saying this
is not a safe working environment, and they walked off
the set.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
And so Hollywood is.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Very much a union business, but the producers hired non
union people to replace them. These nine union people, though,
are not the people. That's not the armor, and it's
not the assistant director, and everybody hasn't talk there at
a line of protocol. You have so many steps in
the line of defense. So when this gun got to
(34:07):
Alex Baldwin, at least two other people were responsible for
saying that it wasn't loaded.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
I mean, didn't somebody even scream out cold gun. I
mean they have to yell it out, you know what
you were just saying. I know so many times for
different shoots. I don't know who he is that carries
that comes over and they have to do it a
certain way. They have to say a certain thing, and
(34:34):
they say it really loudly. I don't know why, but
I'm sure there's a reason for it, just like they
would yell out cold gun and everybody would hear it.
But I guess they yelled it out without checking alexis.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
And there are reports that yes, so there were three
guns that were set up and they were put on
a table outside the church set.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
And this is because of COVID.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Nineteen protocols, so not a lot of people are in
the an inclosed set. They're not there three guns. So
the assistant director picked it up. Dave Halls, as the
other guest said, you know, has a history of a
lot of accidents on sets, and handed it to Bodlin
and he is the one that yelled out, cold gun.
There's no nobody had said there's so many people have
(35:18):
spoken to the police on the set, so many of
the other crew members, and they said they didn't know
whether it actually was.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Empty or not.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
And these guns were used at lunch. This is a
post lunch break, so they broke for lunch at twelve thirty.
They come back after lunch. During that lunchtime, there are
reports that those crew members were using this gun and
other guns to shoot beer bottles out in the desert
area and using it as target practice. So there could
have been alive and there said there was lots of
(35:48):
live ammunition. Nobody was told they couldn't bring live ammunition
on sets.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
That's another thing that you live round on set.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
That's the big problem here.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
And I think I would seeing is that Paul Japan,
I'd like to jump in there.
Speaker 6 (36:02):
It's simply a breakdown of the security of the scene.
The only people there that our arms should be security personnel.
And you know, in my years, my decade of fighting
to keep workplaces safe and to stop stalking offenders from
killing victims, I can tell you one thing, and that
is nobody thinks the unthinkable is going to happen. It's
(36:25):
a matter of just human thinking. They think that, well,
that happened to somebody else, that didn't happen to me.
And because this is somewhat of a rare occurrence on
a set, people got laxed.
Speaker 9 (36:36):
They got lackadaisical about fundamental when it comes to shooting
a scene such as this.
Speaker 11 (36:42):
And just like at any.
Speaker 6 (36:44):
Workplace, this is a workplace out in the middle of
the desert, just like it would be in an office building.
Those protocols broke down and people at work, attempting to
do the right thing for the right reasons, had a catastrophic,
devastating thing happened. Because we as human beings think, well,
if it hasn't happened, it won't happen. And that's just
(37:04):
not the reality of life when it comes to dangerous events.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
The movie Rust now in cinemas across the country. MENI
Illegal eagles still scratching their heads over why a judge
throughout Alec Baldwin's case. Nancy Gray Soney, Goodbye Friend,
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The Alec Baldwin movie Rust
is actually out. Surprisingly, let me say shockingly, after the
shooting death of a beautiful young mom a cinematographer on
(00:24):
the set, Helena Hutchins, they went forward with the movie. Okay,
I'm Nancy Grace, this is Crime Stories. Thank you for
being with us. I almost said the weight is over.
But was anyone actually waiting for this movie. It's been
almost four years after a gun held by Alec Baldwin,
(00:47):
loaded with live AMMO, was shot, killing an extremely talented cinematographer,
Helena Hutchins on the set, and now that movie, after
so many court actions, has made it to theaters. I'm
(01:07):
not a film a critic. The reviews had been mediocre
and O the word is it's very hard to watch
the movie because all you can think about is Lena Hutchins.
You know a lot of many, many films had been
shelved by studios for reasons much less serious than this.
(01:30):
But an average movie that resulted in the shooting death
of a young mom will now be in cinemas for
everyone to view. What happened on that set.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Tragedy on the film set of a new Alec Baldwin
movie and what police are calling a misfire of a
prop gun in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Sheriff's office
there has just confirmed it was Baldwin who fired the
prop gun that killed a forty two world female director
of photography Helena Hutchins. The film's director, Joel Souza, was
(02:07):
also hurt. This incident happened on the side of the
Western Rust. Now detectives are investigating what type of projectile
discharged from this gun?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
You were just hearing our friend Christine Johnson was CBS
what really happened. According to reports, the assistant yelled out
cold gun just before the shooting, which means the gun
was safe, that it was loaded with a blank. So
how do we have a woman, dad, another film person injured?
(02:39):
With me an all star panel to make sense of
it all? If we can? With me? Dominic Romano lawyer
joining us out of New York at Romano Law dot
Com is specialty entertainment law, and I can tell you
somebody's going to need a lawyer. Doctor Sherry Schwartz forensic
psychologists joining us. Karen L. Smith, forensic expert, host of
Shattered Soul's podcast, at Meerbones Forensics dot Com. Paul Zeke
(03:04):
joining US special guest, former police commander and author of
Stop Him From Killing Them on Amazon, and he has
lots of experience using firearms with blanks during live action
movie scenes like Terminator Salvation, Doctor Michelle Dupre forensic pathologists,
(03:24):
former medical examiner, author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide, and
a former police detective. But first to Alexis Terreschuk, Crime
online dot com investigative reporter joining us from Hollywood, Alexis
is what is getting folded into the story, right or wrong?
Is Alec Baldwin's history, his reputation for let me just
(03:51):
say hot headedness to put it euphemistically. If he thought
it was a blank and it should have been a blind,
then history aside it was an accident, But how can
it really be an accident when somebody loaded this prop
gun with real bullets. Just start at the beginning.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
They were on a set in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
It's a western style movie. So they were sitting in
a church at an old church scene, and Alex Baldwin
was sitting in one of the pewes and he was
practicing what's called a cross draw and so that would
be where the person takes your left hand and grabs
the gun out of the holster on the opposite hip,
(04:34):
pulls it across to fire. He was practicing this move
standing the cinematographer, which is the person that makes the
movie beautiful.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
This is the person that.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Films the scene. She was standing in front of him,
with the assistant director stand lembard, with the director standing
right behind her. He was looking over her shoulder to
see what it would look like when Alex.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Pulled the gun out.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
He pulled it out of the side, points it out
at her to show them, pulls the trigger, and it
fires a live round into her, hits her in the
stomach and actually goes through her and grazes the director
sitting standing right behind her.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Hush has pronounced dead at an Albuquerque hospital after being
rushed to the emergency room. You know what, I always
love playing nine one one calls for a jury because
it takes you back to what's really happening. Not a description,
not someone recounting what happened, but you're hearing what really happened.
Take a listen to the beginning of that nine to
(05:33):
one one call.
Speaker 5 (05:35):
We did watch the location of your emergency at banda
creek grant. Right now, we've got to people shot on accidentally.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
She said someone was shot.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
Two people accidentally shot on movie steps and and the
creek grant. I wondered, often I do with the medical
DECI who are you calling?
Speaker 6 (06:00):
Clear the road?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Don't hire any emergency Fanasa three grand people accidentally shot
on a gourby steps.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
Five top gun. We need help immediately, Fananasy three grants come?
They almost phone or okay, what is your name man Mitchell?
That Mitchell wants the phone where you're calling from?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Five up?
Speaker 7 (06:34):
Don't hang up?
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Okay, hold on just one second. Sounds like somebody else
is calling calling better miss. Everybody should be we can
help us. Director in our camera managed camera woman shot.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Now you hear repeatedly the word accident accidentally throughout that.
But is it an accident? Very often when you have,
for instance, a dui crash, people go, well, it was
an accident, but was it because the driver chooses to
go to a bar to order drinks, to drink to
(07:18):
become legally intoxicated, to then get the car keys, walk
to the car, get in the car, crank up, reverse
and drive out onto the roads. That sounds pretty deliberate.
So is it an accident? Is it gross negligence? Well,
take a listen to more of that nine to one
one call.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
So was it loaded with a real bullet or I
cannot start you up? Okay, we have two injuries to
come and movie done us. Okay, we're getting.
Speaker 8 (07:48):
Out there already.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
Just down up on listening thing. Okay, I see that
yelled at me at lunch out in the value vision
can and yell at me. He's a subtructed gun. He's
responsible for how many No? No, no, I'm super hardy
(08:11):
as true that.
Speaker 6 (08:13):
I know of.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
I was hearing you were a hurtant and it went
off and I ran out. We all ran out. There
were bubles over the ID and the camera woman and
the direct and the directors were clearing the road to
come back. We're back on the web. We're back in
the town. If you called there back in the western town.
Is there any serious bleeding?
Speaker 8 (08:36):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
I ran out of the building, but I still have
to go through these Okay, are they completely.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Alert on the I'm here a lot of discussion in
the background. You hear this speaker talking to somebody else
about someone yelling at her and luch about script revision,
and she says she's supposed to shut the gun. He's
responsible for what happened. No, No, I'm a script supervisor
(09:08):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The late arrival of the
movie Rust is the capstone of a horrible, horrible fact scenario.
There was an outpouring of grief when Helena Hutchins was
(09:30):
shot dead, leaving behind a little boy and now a widower.
Then came years of trials against Baldwin and the armorer
responsible for the weapons and the props on the set,
Hannah Gata's Red. It resulted in Gatara's read getting a
slap on the wrist, eighteen months behind bars in Alex
(09:53):
Baldwin's case being thrown out of court. Wow, just when
you think it's over. The is featured on one hundred
screens around the country. What happened to Helena Hutchins? Paul'sake,
Thank you for being with us? What went wrong? Obviously
(10:15):
there was a live bullet and what should have been
a prop gun, But what happened?
Speaker 6 (10:20):
Nancy? The only explanation for this is a systemic breakdown
and systems that are in place to ensure that live
ammunition is not present on the set.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Okay, now that was a lot of words, Paul's I
think you're saying somebody didn't do their job.
Speaker 6 (10:37):
Well, absolutely, somebody did not do their job and catastrophically
did not do that. There's no reason whatsoever for live
ammunition to be on the set of any set. Because
these weapons are capable of firing live rounds. They're not
really prop guns. They're deadly weapons being used as props.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Okay, hold on right there, I want to make that distinction.
You're absolute right when look, I'm a trial lawyer, I'm
a legal expert. You're the expert in this world. When
I say prop gun, I mean they're using it as
a prop. But you're making a very fine, subtle, but
(11:16):
important distinction. A prompt gun is a fake gun. I
don't think it even can shoot.
Speaker 6 (11:22):
Is that right exactly? You're talking about? Say it prop nice? Correct,
It has a flat edge on it, it's incapable of
cutting you. These are things that are not deemed to
be dangerous. A prop gun is simply as utilized on set.
Our weapons that are capable of firing live ammunition, and
therefore accidentally live ammunition could be mixed with blank rounds.
(11:46):
You know, given time, this is just a disaster waiting
to happen. They need to move to true prop guns
that are incapable of chambering live ammunition. Until that happens,
this has a very strong chance repeating itself.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Well, okay, tell me this, Paul Zake, guys with me.
Paul Zike. He is a former police commander. He's an
author screen actors gil and has experience using blanks during
live action movie scenes where we all think they're shooting
real guns. If you suspend your disbelief in movies like
his Terminator Salvation, those aren't real guns. So why are
(12:25):
they using a real gun to start with? Paul Zike
And I mean to me, having been forced to handle
so many guns and so many homicides, what moron wouldn't
make sure that there were blanks in the gun.
Speaker 6 (12:41):
It's hard to imagine that during the loading of the
weapon that that was not viewed very strictly as a
weapon is loaded. And also there's a chain of custody
issue here on the scene of Terminator Salvation.
Speaker 9 (12:56):
As we would go out and we would conduct the
battle scene if you will, in the middle of the night,
we would be handed directly from the armor, fully automatic
weapons and magatizines, fully loaded with blanks, and we would
head straight out to where the scene was to be shot,
and then we would engage in the scene, you know,
five ten minutes later, hand the weapons straight back to
(13:17):
the armor, all the ammunition back to the armor, all.
Speaker 6 (13:20):
The magazines back to the armor, and we would not
be able to touch those weapons again until the next scene.
So from a chain of custody standpoint, I went directly
from the armor directly to my hand, my you know,
the co actor's hands that were with me, and that
was maintained very strictly pulled on.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Paul, I've got to soak in everything you're saying, because
Dominic Romano a high profile lawyer joining us out of
New York's specialty entertainment law. And that's why Dominic's joining
us today. Dominic hold on. When you heard Paul's like, say,
China custody, I immediately thought of a serial murderer that
I prosecuted on one murder. We could get them on
(14:00):
one and ended up I would say, three weeks before trial.
I was just looking at the evidence and I noticed
that the bag that contained The evidence wasn't signed. It
had never been signed by the homicide cop that picked
it up from It was DNA in There was blood
(14:21):
from where it had been taken and carried to the
crime lab. It wasn't written on the back. Did anybody
tamper with it? No, he just didn't put his initials.
I'm like, Oh, dear Lord in Heaven, the chain is broken.
This could be attacked at trial. I had to go
back out to the jail, stand there and look at
this killer while he pulled his blood again. Then I
(14:41):
carried it with my investigator myself back to the crime
lab to have it retested. Praise the Lord in Heaven.
It was his DNA. Long story short, that's chain of custody.
Your case can be lost. You can lose a serial
killer because somebody didn't keep the chain to preserve the
integrity of the trial. That's what I thought when Paul
(15:03):
Zaike scept chain of custody. But did you also hear
him say dominic romano he handed it back to the
It sounds like he was saying armor or armory. But
I've been reading about this case. It's an armor er,
armor er who is the person in charge of all
the weapons, and.
Speaker 10 (15:21):
I think Paul is absolutely right. Look, no one should
ever be killed by a gun on a film set period.
Those are the words of Brandon Lee's sister. Brandon Lee
shot on a film set in the early nineteen nineties.
This should not happen. There are established protocols, chains of
commend I mean, there appears to be some serious gross
(15:44):
negligence on that set to allow that to have that.
That is the appearance, and I don't know what evidence
can come out to rebut.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
That presumption alive round in well, as Paul Zyke has
corrected me, it's not a prop gun. They were using
real guns. Hey, let me ask you a question, Paul's ike.
Explain the difference and what a blank looks like as
opposed to a live round a bullet. We're saying live rounds,
we're talking about a bullet. What's the difference. Can't you
(16:15):
just look at them and.
Speaker 6 (16:16):
You can see the difference In most cases, absolutely, it's
very clear. You can see the difference. In some types
of calibers, say two two three, if you will, that's
what an AR fifteen would shoot. The blanks are kind
of crimped at the end to almost look like there's
a bullet on the end of them. But any sort
(16:38):
of trained professional whatsoever, when you're handling a blank, you
know it's a blank. When it's a bullet, you know
it's a bullet. The blank does not have a lead
projectile or a steel projectile at the end of the round,
So at the end it's either flat or it's slightly
crimped to hold in the gunpowder, which you know, the
(16:58):
firearm usually needs the gun powder to correctly function the
weapon and cycle the weapon, and it's one of the
reasons why blanks are used.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Okay, Paul Zyke, I really respect you, but you're gonna
have to dumb me down for me, okay, because I
would have to put you through intensive training before you
took the stand because a lot of people do not
know what you just said. Just think about it and
think you there's a way you can say it in
more simple terms. What's the difference between a blank and
a lie bullet when you look at it? Speak English
(17:31):
man in the meantime. Wait a minute, you mentioned Brandon Lee,
and you're absolutely right. We pulled sound of other cases
almost identical to this. This is not the first time
it's happened. Believe it or not, Tyler, could you roll
our cut forty four? Let's follow up on what Paul
Zyke said about Brandon Lee.
Speaker 11 (17:50):
That's a bully compound that killed Brandon Lee. Some believe
a piece of a croplyd without gunpowder, and it may
have been left accidentally in the gun. Blank was fired
at Brand and in some field let's shot out the properly,
mortally wounding him.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
Though it was an accident waiting to happen.
Speaker 11 (18:05):
The Crow crewmember we spoke but says that there were
many opportunities for an accident to happen.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Are the working conditions.
Speaker 7 (18:11):
On the set of The Crow particularly bad? Threely long hours,
eighteen hour days back to back at times pushing ninety
one hundred hours a week, six day weeks is way
too much. Do you think that that over work, that
exhaustion might have resulted in this accident? Stage your conscience
olive them were definitely not called. It could have been
(18:33):
prevented with better management.
Speaker 11 (18:37):
The publicist for the movie The Crow denies that the
working conditions were insane.
Speaker 12 (18:41):
Certainly everyone was very tired and exhausted from the shoe,
but these are professionals and they're used to working conditions
like this.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Okay, guys, you were hearing our friends and inside Edition,
and I want to follow up on what we're just
hearing with Alexis Tereschuk. I played that sound for a reason, Alexis,
because on the Alec Baldwin said of rust, there apparently
were problems with working conditions. A group of the crew
had walked out I think the night before the claiming
(19:11):
that they had bad hotels. They were an hour away
from a hotel or motel and if they worked late
into the night, they have to drive through I guess
the desert and a lot of them were actually sleeping
in their cars overnight. That's just some of the complaints
I've heard. But what are the other complaints, if any
on the Alec Baldwin movie set.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Well, there have been complaints that things were not safe quote.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
But one of the the person is.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Being directly blamed for a lot of the unfaked is
when you were listening to the nine one one calling
you said you heard the woman saying that he was
yelling at me things like that. This is the assistant
director that they're talking about, and this is the assistant director,
David Hall who handed the gun to Baldwin and said,
this is a cold gun. So what the people on
the set were saying is that Halls was not a
(20:01):
responcable person. He was very angry. He was making the
job very difficult for everybody to do, and they didn't
trust him.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Wait a minute, you're saying, David Halls was an assistant director. Yeah, okay,
Well what about the honorer? Is she the one responsible
for all the weapons and the blanks or the bullets? Guys,
take another Listen to our cut forty three. This is
about practically the same thing happening before. Listen.
Speaker 11 (20:29):
It was here at the Carrol Coast Studios in Wilmington,
North Carolina, that actor Brandon Lee was filming The Crow.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Ironically, the film.
Speaker 11 (20:36):
Is about a man who dies and comes back to
life to advanish his death. Shortly after midnight last Tuesday,
Brandon Lee was preparing to film a routine action scene
the script for him to get shot at as he
walks through door carrying a bag of groceries. Michael Massey,
the actor doing the shooting, is reportedly devastated by Lee's
death and remains in seclusion.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
The gunny was using supposed to be loaded with blanks.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
From the camera's role. Brandon Lee was performing for the
last time.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Not only can you drive to a theater and see Russ,
you can pay about fifteen dollars for an at home purchase. Okay,
would you want to why you and Karen Smith?
Speaker 13 (21:18):
Well, we deal a lot with forensics in physics. When
we do a reconstruction, we use snippets of time and
sometimes that can be split seconds, and this includes trajectories
of projectiles, and.
Speaker 8 (21:29):
This trajectory can generally be explained by the reporting. Alec
Baldwin was reported to be sitting at a church pew
to align a camera angle when the gun was fired.
Alena Hutchins then collapsed on the floor and Joel Susa
was struck in the clavicles. That's an upward.
Speaker 13 (21:44):
Trajectory, which means both Hutchins and Susa were standing up
when the event occurred. The projectile that perforated Helena's body
and subsequently struck Joel.
Speaker 8 (21:53):
Now, in order for that to happen, the kinetic energy,
which is energy.
Speaker 13 (21:58):
As the result of motion, would be very high. We're
dealing with mass or the amount of matter in an
object and energy dispersion.
Speaker 8 (22:06):
Guns carry a high volume of energy. In a small space,
and that from.
Speaker 13 (22:10):
My experience, it tells me that it was something other.
Speaker 8 (22:13):
Than just the paper or elastic wadding from a blank round.
That needs to be.
Speaker 13 (22:18):
Confirmed by the emmy and the investigators. But there are
reports of live ammunition bullets being on the set and
that particular gun allegedly being used for target practice that morning.
There's a lot of questions that needs to be answered
by the investigators and them.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Again for the set being used as target practice. Paul Zeike,
that shouldn't be that you've got crew members out shooting bottles.
I think that that's coming out with live bullets and
use that same gun for a sane and a church
full of people.
Speaker 6 (22:54):
And Nancy, I just want to clarify the prior point,
so very simply, a blank is a is a shellcasing
with gunpowder in it with no bullet. A bullet is
the same exact thing with more gunpowder and a live
bullet at the end of it that is made to
travel through the barrel and exit the weapon. Back to
(23:15):
what you were saying, that's the cardinal rule that's been broken,
whether you're whether you're involved in police training or you're
involved in a movie set keeping live ammunition away from
weapons that fire live ammunition, and keeping weapons at fire
blanks away from those instances. And when you mix those
two together, the odds of somebody having a spare live
(23:37):
round in one of their pockets or you name it
is super high. And it sounds very sloppy, and it
just just opens the door for terrible things to happen.
And that's where the systemic breakdown and that controlled environment.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I'm Jolliet Paul Zyke. You're right. Super sloppy is one
way to put it. Gross negligence or unintentional murder is
another way to put it. I think I hear Dominic
Ramano jumping in go ahead.
Speaker 10 (24:05):
Yeah, basically it's a catastrophic miscalculation. I think two people
here should be folks. We should focus on one is
the armor like this is only According to reports, her
second movie with jaris Read and the assistant director Dave
Hall's you mentioned before. According to reports, he was fired
from a twenty nineteen production of Freedom's Past. I first
(24:28):
member suffered a minor injury.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
WHOA why why white white? You got me drinking from
the fire hydrant, which is not a bad thing. It's
too much at once old on. Right in the world,
would you have somebody that was fired off another similar
job handling your weapon? Okay? Is that what you just said? Dominic?
Speaker 10 (24:46):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Almost so almost.
Speaker 10 (24:48):
The armorer is twenty four years old. The person handling
the weapons, it's only her second film. She was just
in a podcast last month where she said, you know,
she's a bit nervous about her but it went well.
While there's apparently a famous armor okay, so we have
that an experienced armor number two, we have the assistant director,
one of the ad dve Holes. Apparently, according to a report,
(25:11):
he was fired from the twenty nineteen production. The movie
was Freedom passed after crew members suffered guess what a
minor injury when a gun unexpectedly.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Discharged dominate romano. The words similar transactions are jumping to mind.
I mean, this solidifies my thought that this is not
an accident, because an accident is when you totally don't
see it coming. It's just like out of the blue.
But if this guy, if it's correct, the ad had
(25:43):
a previous incident where somebody was shot on a set.
Even if it was a minor injury, then you should
have seen you either new or should have known. Would
you agree with that dominate Romano.
Speaker 10 (25:54):
There going to be some serious questions to be asked,
and there have to be answers, and we don't have
good answers. Someone is either going to be involved in
a very expensive lawsuit or, depending on what they knew
and when they knew it and how careless they were,
(26:15):
probably facing some time. The other issue you alluded to
earlier is cost cutting. It's rampant in the industry right now,
and the production company's decision not to book the crew
hotel rooms near the actual set, but to have them
travel an hour in each direction to get to and
(26:35):
from their accommodation, to have long hours where people walked
off the set earlier that day in protest. So this
is a combination of what turned out to be a
lethal combination at catastrophic calculation on the part of the
production company.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Well, you just said a mouthful, all in a good way,
betraying the armor or being an experienced ad having a
prior similar transaction, and budget cuts problems amongst the crew.
Take a listen to our cut six that are from
our friends at News Nation.
Speaker 12 (27:08):
Now let's start with the people responsible for handling a gun.
There are no ubiquitous rules across all film sets, but
generally there are some guidelines that they follow and here
into a budget. Budget usually plays a big role. In
many sets, there are no fewer than three people responsible for.
Speaker 6 (27:24):
Monitoring a weapon.
Speaker 12 (27:25):
Prop Mastercums in charge of all cropts, is often supported
by a safety officer and a SUN coordinator, and depending
on the state, you may also need to bring in
an armorer whose only job is handling weapons. An armorer
is required by New Mexico state law.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace because many critics believe the
tragedy of Helena's shooting death overpowers anything that might be
good about movie. What happened? What really happened that day
on the set of Rust, Doctor Dupree, I'm sure you,
(28:09):
like myself, have had to handle weapons in front of jurys,
and I learned this from watching a pro try cases.
I would always pick the gun up, holding it face
down with a barrel pointing to the ground, so the
jury or anyone else would not be alarmed. What you
(28:30):
don't want to do is scare your jury. I would
walk in front of the jury holding the weapon nose down,
open the chamber, let them see me check it, hold
it up like I was examining it through, you know,
at my eye level, so they could see that it
was empty, and then shut it and then give it
(28:52):
to the witness without fail. Even if it was a
weapon that I knew was inoperable. That was soop. Why
would that not occur on a movie set? But describe
how you're supposed to handle weapons exactly, Nancy.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
You described it perfectly. That is exactly what you should do.
And if you're giving a weapon to someone else, normally
you have the chamber open so that they can also see,
and then you both check it and know that it's
empty or that the blanks.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Are in it. Tell me what you can discern about
what Karen Smith, forensics expert, just told us about the injuries.
What happened, Nancy.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Even though these are quote prop guns or blanks, they
can still obviously do devastating damage the wadding or whatever
they are filled with, even in a blank.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
But this was not a blank.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
This is an actual projectile.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
And as we know, you mean a bullet speak English,
a bullet.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
Yes, yes, this is a bullet and the caliber of
that bullet of the gun is what is going to
determine how how much damage is done. As she explained,
the higher the caliber, the more energy in that bullet,
and so the more damage done to the physical bodies.
And of course the location where that bullet enters the
(30:13):
body in this case was devastating.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
You know, another issue to doctor Sherry Schwartz. I've been
on a lot of TV sets, obviously in movie sets
for you know, cameos or some legal issue. And I
got to tell you, doctor Sherry Schwartz, a movie set
takes on a whole It's like you're in a different world.
Like when you go to the movies and you sit
down and it goes dark, your mind takes you there. Well,
(30:40):
you're on a movie set. I've never been on a
single movie set that went on time. You go till
one or two o'clock in the morning, it's pitch dark outside.
You keep going until you get the shot or you
finish the scene, or whatever it's called in movie world.
I think that there is a suspended fear you think
(31:02):
you're at a movie set, like when you go to
Disneyland or when you're on vacation on a cruise ship.
You suspend your normal thinking. It doesn't seem real and
you're not thinking, Wow, there's a gun I could get
shot because it's quote just a movie, it's not real.
How do we, let me just say, suspend our disbelief,
(31:26):
suspend rational rules of functioning when you're on a movie
set or in a movie, you know, like in movies
where there's some nut with a gun and you hear
a sound, but you don't think it's real because you're
in a movie. What happens in the human mind, doctor Sherry.
Speaker 14 (31:43):
Well, when you don't think that something is actually real,
then you would not calculate accurately what the potential risks are, right,
And so there is this gun on the set, but
everybody thinks, oh, it's just make believe. We're setting this
up to film it. Nobody's actually going to get hurt.
(32:04):
And so what happens mentally is that you underestimate what
the potential risks are. And what happened here is an
egregious underestimation.
Speaker 8 (32:15):
Right, So for the rest of us, that's to make believes.
Speaker 14 (32:17):
Maybe even for the actor, they know that they're just
playing a role, and everybody around them might know they're
playing a role. But there are people on the set
who are responsible for that gun and for taking that
proper care and knowing what the potential risks are.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Do you, Alexis Treesha Crime online dot Com investigative reporter,
you have heard Dominant Romano Paul's like, well, everyone on
the panel weighing in. But apparently there were a lot
of problems and a lot of disgruntled crew members. I
understand that one of the motels they had set them
up to stay overnight was at a place for the homeless,
(32:55):
and there were drug addicts there. They were afraid to
stay there. What was going on on the set, Well, it.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Seems like what they were trying to do was make
this film as cheaply as possible. Understandable, but they were
putting people's lives at risk. It was fiftyse hotels were
fifty miles away, so after working fourteen hour days, the
crew was having to drive over an hour to get
to their hotel. Then they would have to be back
within like six hours, so they would get almost no
sleep at all. But they were also saying that things
(33:25):
were just not safe. There had been an incident a
few days earlier that one of the prop guns again
prop done real gun, had been accidentally fired and so
the crew has been complaining to the producer saying this
is not a safe working environment, and they walked off
the set.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
And so Hollywood is.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Very much a union business, but the producers hired non
union people to replace them. These nine union people, though,
are not the people. That's not the armor, and it's
not the assistant director, and everybody hasn't talk there at
a line of protocol. You have so many steps in
the line of defense. So when this gun got to
(34:07):
Alex Baldwin, at least two other people were responsible for
saying that it wasn't loaded.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
I mean, didn't somebody even scream out cold gun. I
mean they have to yell it out, you know what
you were just saying. I know so many times for
different shoots. I don't know who he is that carries
that comes over and they have to do it a
certain way. They have to say a certain thing, and
(34:34):
they say it really loudly. I don't know why, but
I'm sure there's a reason for it, just like they
would yell out cold gun and everybody would hear it.
But I guess they yelled it out without checking alexis.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
And there are reports that yes, so there were three
guns that were set up and they were put on
a table outside the church set.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
And this is because of COVID.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Nineteen protocols, so not a lot of people are in
the an inclosed set. They're not there three guns. So
the assistant director picked it up. Dave Halls, as the
other guest said, you know, has a history of a
lot of accidents on sets, and handed it to Bodlin
and he is the one that yelled out, cold gun.
There's no nobody had said there's so many people have
(35:18):
spoken to the police on the set, so many of
the other crew members, and they said they didn't know
whether it actually was.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Empty or not.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
And these guns were used at lunch. This is a
post lunch break, so they broke for lunch at twelve thirty.
They come back after lunch. During that lunchtime, there are
reports that those crew members were using this gun and
other guns to shoot beer bottles out in the desert
area and using it as target practice. So there could
have been alive and there said there was lots of
(35:48):
live ammunition. Nobody was told they couldn't bring live ammunition
on sets.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
That's another thing that you live round on set.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
That's the big problem here.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
And I think I would seeing is that Paul Japan,
I'd like to jump in there.
Speaker 6 (36:02):
It's simply a breakdown of the security of the scene.
The only people there that our arms should be security personnel.
And you know, in my years, my decade of fighting
to keep workplaces safe and to stop stalking offenders from
killing victims, I can tell you one thing, and that
is nobody thinks the unthinkable is going to happen. It's
(36:25):
a matter of just human thinking. They think that, well,
that happened to somebody else, that didn't happen to me.
And because this is somewhat of a rare occurrence on
a set, people got laxed.
Speaker 9 (36:36):
They got lackadaisical about fundamental when it comes to shooting
a scene such as this.
Speaker 11 (36:42):
And just like at any.
Speaker 6 (36:44):
Workplace, this is a workplace out in the middle of
the desert, just like it would be in an office building.
Those protocols broke down and people at work, attempting to
do the right thing for the right reasons, had a catastrophic,
devastating thing happened. Because we as human beings think, well,
if it hasn't happened, it won't happen. And that's just
(37:04):
not the reality of life when it comes to dangerous events.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
The movie Rust now in cinemas across the country. MENI
Illegal eagles still scratching their heads over why a judge
throughout Alec Baldwin's case. Nancy Gray Soney, Goodbye Friend,
Host
Nancy Grace
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