Alec Baldwin, A Cold Gun that was Hot, And the Tragedy that followed …

As I began to write this story about this tragedy what struck me right away was the memory I had of two similar incidents that occurred decades apart but still seemed fresh to me because of the questions of what went wrong to allow such a grievous lack of safety on a Movie set? The first memory was of John Erik Hexum, who in 1984 was an actor who was often compared to Tom Selleck in terms of potential, in between scenes for his TV series CoverUp, he loaded a .44 magnum that was to be used in the next scene with one blank cartridge. During a delay in shooting he began to play an impromptu game of Russian roulette with some crew members, and putting the gun to his temple, the blank fired, and as blanks use paper or plastic wadding to seal gunpowder into the cartridge, the wadding smashed into his head with enough force to fracture his skull, although not actually penetrating his skin, a portion of his skull was lodged in his brain, and six days later this promising young star was declared brain dead at age 26 of an accidental Self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The next time I heard of a similar incident was with Brandon Lee, son of legendary martial arts actor Bruce Lee, who on the set of the Movie “The Crow” was shot and killed in 1993 during the filming of a scene in which he rushes into the room to save his girlfriend. He was shot in the stomach by a real gun which was loaded with improperly made “ dummy rounds” which led to a partially stuck bullet in the chamber to be propelled forward with enough force that it was equal to a live round.

He died at age 28 in 1993 and the shooting was eventually ruled an act of negligence.

A Perfect Storm of a troubled production plagued with a series of errors and tension…

Alec Baldwins movie production “Rust” in which Baldwin, during a rehearsal scene was handed a gun which the crew was assured was a “Cold gun” meaning it had no live ammunition in the chambers. But in fact, the gun, a .45 colt long revolver was loaded with a live round, and what they thought to be a cold gun was actually hot, and it proved to be deadly. As the director, Joel Sousa, who was also hit and wounded, said later the gun sounded like a whip and then a loud pop. The film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, 42 , was standing just a few feet away as the gun was fired, she was hit in the chest by a lead bullet that passed through her and then hit the director of the film Joel Sousa. And the question remains why was there any live ammunition on the set, where it is usually forbidden? What could have caused such confusion on the set that the most basic gun safety rules weren’t checked and double-checked ? Well, clues to the confusion are slowly emerging as the movie was plagued by production delays and the night before the shooting six members of the camera crew had resigned, citing issues of late paychecks and lack of adequate hotel accommodations.

And in the days leading up to the shooting, tensions were rising as there were two separate incidents of accidental gun discharges, and it was felt on the set, where the crew was obviously on edge, as the production became more unorganized by the day..

Adding to these concerns was the relative inexperience of the movie’s armorer, who was in charge of all the weaponry on the set, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who at age 24 was just beginning her career as a head armorer. In a recent podcast she spoke of her work on her first movie as head armorer, a western titled “ The Old Way” and she said she almost didn’t take the job because she was not sure she was ready. During the filming of that movie, discussions of her dismissal arose after two unannounced discharges of weapons she was handling, one of which reportedly startled and angered the film’s star Nicholas Cage.

She was kept on reportedly because of cost cutting measures, as there was a labor shortage at the time.During the morning of the incident the actors assembled and prepared to shoot the scene, a loud call of “ Cold gun !” was heard as the weapon was handed to Alec Baldwin and as he began to practice his draw, the gun fired, striking Halyna Hutchins and then the director Joel Souza, Ms. Hutchins died a short while later after being transported to a hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Mr. Souza was taken to a separate hospital where they extracted the lead bullet proving that indeed the gun was loaded with and fired a live round. An investigation is continuing and it raises more questions than answers, on a set that was not supposed to have ANY live rounds, how did one find its way into a gun that eventually landed in Alec Baldwin’s hand resulting in the death of one person and injury to another?

The head armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, through her lawyers said she has no idea where the live rounds came from, well who was in charge of loading and prepping the weapons that day ? Was it the inexperienced Gutierrez-Reed or did she hand off that responsibility to someone else, those and other questions remain to be answered as of now a criminal investigation is underway, and no charges have been filed as of yet.This tragedy underscores a greater problem in my opinion, not just on movie sets but in workplaces across the country during these confusing times where there seems to be a lower quality of work threshold, and on jobs where mistakes could cost lives, the employers should be required to hire the best worker available regardless of price, not the most affordable one. Then maybe tragedies like this could be avoided and workers could feel a sense of comfort and calm instead of tension and uncertainty. Let’s hope at the very least that this underscores the need for experience and quality in the workplace among those in charge of safety and compliance. And say a prayer for all those involved in this incident, for the cinematographer who lost her life to those who are left to suffer the guilt and pain of knowing that Halyna Hutchins death that day was completely avoidable.

John Walter Raney 1st