Investigators spent greater than a 12 months finding out blame for the loss of life of Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer killed on the set of “Rust.” In the long run, two businesses got here to 2 sharply completely different conclusions about Alec Baldwin’s degree of accountability as a producer of the movie.
Prosecutors charged Baldwin for firing the gun that killed Hutchins, but additionally for administration failures that created a hazardous set.
“We imagine Baldwin, as a producer, is aware of every thing that goes on, on the set,” prosecutor Andrea Reeb mentioned on Fox Information’ “The 5” final month. “There have been a whole lot of security issues that have been delivered to the eye of administration, and he did nothing about it.”
However in a parallel continuing, the New Mexico division of the Occupational Security and Well being Administration discovered that Baldwin was not in cost and was not the one culpable for lax oversight.
“He didn’t even have staff on-site that he or his delegated individuals would handle or oversee,” mentioned Lorenzo Montoya, OSHA’s lead investigator, in a deposition final month. Apart from his private assistant, Montoya mentioned, “He has no worker presence. He’s simply him.”
The divergent conclusions might complicate efforts to carry Baldwin criminally accountable. In addition they elevate questions on why, if the prosecutors needed to pursue administration failures, they didn’t cost others within the manufacturing’s hierarchy.
Reeb, a Republican member of the New Mexico legislature, was appointed final August by Santa Fe D.A. Mary Carmack-Altwies, a Democrat, to function the particular prosecutor on the case. In an interview on “Hannity,” Reeb mentioned that politics performed no function within the charging choice.
However some have argued that Reeb has a political incentive to focus on Baldwin, who is thought for his liberal views.
“They’re attempting to seize headlines and sensationalize this for politics, and it actually bothers me,” says Dan Lindsey, a protection lawyer in Clovis, N.M., the place Reeb has been a prosecutor for 25 years. “They’re manner off base right here.”
Hutchins’ loss of life was the results of a sequence of errors. Investigators have did not assign blame for the primary hyperlink within the chain — the contamination of a field of dummy rounds with a handful of similar-looking stay rounds. Complicating issues additional, filmmaking is a collaborative enterprise, and it isn’t at all times clear who stories to whom.
However the OSHA investigation laid final administration authority on producer Ryan Smith and his firm, Rust Film Prods. “Ryan Smith was recognized because the boss by a number of individuals,” Montoya testified.
OSHA was particularly vital of David Halls, the primary assistant director, who was in command of set security. The company faulted him for not taking motion to handle two unintentional discharges of clean rounds 5 days previous to Hutchins’ loss of life. After
Baldwin’s stunt double fired a clean by mistake, Halls testified to OSHA that he did ask, “What the bleep is occurring in there?” However he was not involved sufficient to order a full-blown investigation.
“There isn’t any precedent, in my expertise, that may warrant stopping every thing and investigating it,” Halls mentioned.
He additionally testified that if he had a security concern, he would have reported it to the producers, however he didn’t.
In a probable-cause assertion, the D.A.’s workplace blamed Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed — however not Halls — for failing to handle the misfires.
The D.A. additionally faulted Baldwin for not making certain that security conferences have been held, contributing to a “local weather of recklessness” on set. However in his deposition, Halls mentioned that it was his job to supervise security conferences.
As well as, the D.A. blamed Baldwin for permitting the hiring of Gutierrez Reed, regardless of her inexperience. Nonetheless, Gabrielle Pickle, the road producer, testified that she employed Gutierrez Reed after consulting with Halls, director Joel Souza, the manufacturing designer and “one or two of the producers.”
“This business is probably the most collaborative decision-making business I’ve ever been in,” Pickle testified.
She didn’t point out Baldwin as a participant within the hiring course of. Baldwin has denied any involve- ment and has mentioned that his producer function was restricted to inventive decisions, comparable to casting choices and script adjustments.
Gutierrez Reed testified that seven individuals had some function in supervising her work, together with Halls, Pickle, the unit manufacturing supervisor and the prop grasp. Baldwin was not amongst them.
OSHA can refer its findings to the state legal professional common for prosecution. The company didn’t try this on this case, says spokesman Matthew Maez, as a result of the Santa Fe County Sheriff ’s Workplace was already investigating.
Requested concerning the completely different conclusions reached by the 2 investigations, Maez says that OSHA gave its case file to the D.A., “however was in any other case uninvolved of their investigation or decision-making course of.” He referred additional inquiries to the D.A.’s workplace, which declined to remark.
Smith was not charged with against the law, nor was Rust Film Prods. Of the 5 different producers, solely Baldwin was charged. Gutierrez Reed was charged with involuntary manslaughter for mistakenly loading a stay spherical into Baldwin’s gun. She and Baldwin each resist 18 months in jail if convicted.
Halls was the one different individual prosecuted. He was allowed to plead no contest to a misdemeanor and can face no jail time. Carmack-Altwies advised the Los Angeles Instances that Halls was given a plea deal as a result of he was cooperative and was “the least culpable” of the defendants.
