Alec Baldwin "Rust" Movie Set Deadly Shooting: Deep Dive Into All Legal Angles, with Viva Frei | Ep. 441
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 16 minutes
Words per Minute
197.36378
Summary
A year ago, Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed Helena Hutchins, an up-and-coming cinematographer on the set of his new film, Rust. Now, a year and a half later, no one has been charged in connection with the death of Helena.
Transcript
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
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Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
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On October 21st last year, police and EMTs were dispatched to the Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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The call to 911 relayed that two people had been accidentally shot on the Rust movie set.
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Cinematographer Helena Hutchins' injuries would soon after prove to be fatal.
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And director Joel Sousa thankfully only suffered an injured shoulder from the very same bullet that passed through Helena.
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More than a year later, no one has faced criminal charges in connection with the accidental death of Hutchins.
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Actor Alec Baldwin was holding the gun that killed this up-and-coming filmmaker.
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Shortly after we taped this episode, the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office released a 551-page report into the Rust investigation.
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The report did little to answer the crucial questions a year later.
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There are still no answers as to how live ammunition made its way to the Rust set.
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Nor did the report make any judgments on whether criminal charges should be filed.
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It did, however, release some text messages from Alec Baldwin to Hutchins' husband, insisting that he and the cinematographer believed the gun was empty.
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Baldwin also suggested that there may be a sabotage angle and also told an assistant, quote,
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By the way, that's never something you should put in writing.
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But Baldwin's lawyer says that was in reference to his Twitter account and unrelated to the case.
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Lawyer-turned-YouTuber David Freiheit, better known to his audience as Aviva Fry, has followed this story quite closely.
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He joins us to discuss it all in this special episode.
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But first, a little background on David because he's fascinating in his own right.
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David was on track to make partner at one of the most prominent law firms in Canada when he left to start his own practice.
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Shortly after he struck out on his own, he got a GoPro for Christmas, which changed his entire trajectory.
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He now has over 500,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, where he dissects the latest news through his unique and fair legal perspective.
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And somewhere in there, he even found time to run for the Canadian Parliament.
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So it's amazing to think that this was only a year ago that this happened.
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And this was like, just to set the stage, this was a small movie production.
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This was not like, you know, big superhero type budget.
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Alec Baldwin is not as big a star as he used to be.
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And he was, in addition to the star, the executive producer, which will become relevant legally.
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It's well, it feels like a lot more than a year ago.
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I remember where I was when this happened, where the news broke that it has since become a sad Internet meme.
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Alec Baldwin killed a woman on a set and it hadn't happened in a long time.
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And it at first, you know, people were jumping on it for the firearm safety aspect of it or the gun control aspect.
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But my goodness, as it evolved into something much deeper and, you know, infiltrated by politics, to put it mildly.
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There's video of Alec Baldwin right after the shooting.
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I want to make sure I don't mischaracterize it, but it was obtained by TMZ.
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And you can see him sitting with Dave Halls, the movie's assistant director, associate director.
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And Baldwin asked a question about Helena and how she's doing.
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And the exit point was on her back left shoulder blade.
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And I don't think there's anybody accusing Alec Baldwin of intentionally hurting Helena Hutchins.
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The question is whether there was negligence or recklessness in this case, but not intentionality.
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Well, there were at the beginning some theories.
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People were hypothesizing about sabotage, deliberate, you know, placing live ammunition on set.
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People jump down some very deep rabbit holes, make some connections because Hollywood and politics intertwine.
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But by and large, no, nobody's suggesting this was deliberate sabotage, an attempt to get someone hurt.
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And it would have been so astronomical to even get that to happen in the first place, because in the ordinary run of things, people are not pulling triggers, even if they are on prop guns.
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And I'm putting the word prop in quotes because people think prop guns mean fake guns when they just mean real guns, functional guns that happen to be the property of the set.
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You know, the idea that this would have been a malicious sabotage at the time, there were some ideas that the crew were upset.
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Maybe someone threw in a live at a live round here to sabotage.
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No, the question does become, is it criminal negligence?
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Although I think that question is obviously answered in the affirmative and to the extent it's answered in the affirmative, who's criminally negligent here in under the legal sense to suffer some consequences or get charged with something?
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Eventually, there would be a simulation of the shooting death of Helena Hutchins, who was, again, the cinematographer shooting Alec Baldwin with her camera.
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And he was using a gun, a prop gun that he did not think was loaded with actual live rounds.
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But eventually, there in support of the lawsuit that they ultimately filed, lawyers for the family of Helena Hutchins' family submitted this video.
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It was a simulation of what they believe happened.
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I think it's probably helpful if we show it to the audience now and then we can talk about it.
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It's disturbing even to see in a simulation, but it shows him it shows Helena Hutchins a little bit to the side of the camera, like she's kind of cheating the side of the of the camera.
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Now, that is what we believe happened, despite what Alec Baldwin would later tell the world, right, that he did point the gun in her direction and did pull the trigger.
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But Baldwin's one of his bigger curses is the inability to not make public statements at critical junctures.
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He's made a lot of conflicting statements, but his initial defense was I never pulled the trigger.
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He did make some subsequent statements that he pulled the hammer back.
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I've learned a fair bit about older guns and guns in this context, but there is the question about whether or not you could pull back the hammer and then release it without pulling the trigger.
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But most people agree that with a two lock system, as was the case with this firearm, you would have to have the trigger compressed in order to release the hammer and have it potentially strike the figure with the part of the gun of the bullet to release it.
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He said he never pulled the trigger, but yet admitted that he pulled the hammer back as per the instructions of Helena Hutchins.
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But just with respect to that graphic, that graphic was undoubtedly generated to create the image for I'm not going to say not shock purpose, but so people can visualize how horrific it was.
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But that graphic is effectively what everyone stated occurred from the beginning.
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Helena is telling Alec what to do with the gun, how to frame it, and it goes off.
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But it would always be Alec's point of defense that he never pulled the trigger to suggest that maybe there was some malfunction.
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But that theory, implausible as it was at the very beginning in any event, seems to have been debunked by the FBI investigation, which concluded someone had to pull the trigger given the nature of this type of gun.
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And even if someone pulled the hammer back and released it and it struck the primer and discharged a live ammunition, the trigger would have had to have been compressed in any event.
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In which case, I think we might be getting into a bit of semantics as to whether he pulled the trigger versus compressed the trigger, then pulled the hammer back and released the hammer.
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Either way, no, but it was interesting because I think the fact that he lied is going to be very relevant.
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So I don't think anybody and I don't think a jury is ever going to believe him that he did not pull the trigger once they get experts on the stand who testify, as you just said, that this gun, this Colt 45 cannot like the law enforcement, the FBI looked at it and said, you cannot fire this gun without pulling the trigger.
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But notwithstanding all that, let me play the soundbite.
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He told George Stephanopoulos, among others, that he did not pull the trigger.
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His top four isn't in the script for the trigger to be pulled.
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Well, the trigger wasn't, but I didn't pull the trigger.
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I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them.
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Honestly, can I just say, David, that that to me is he's a good actor.
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And you can see it in that clip because I do believe he's lying.
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I do believe that the law enforcement's correct.
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He's selling that story pretty well right there.
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Well, it's the me thinks he doth protest it too much.
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It's it's I may be wrong in my body language analysis or behavioral analysis, but I've been
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A practicing attorney to have come to certain conclusions that no, no, no, no, no, no.
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And he does it multiple times in that interview.
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That's like sort of trying to deny something that he feels to be true just to give Alec Baldwin
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the absolute benefit of the doubt and to play devil's advocate, possibly literally.
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Um, when he says I didn't pull the trigger in his mind, there could be a difference between
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pulling the trigger to activate the hammer versus, you know, in a subsequent interview,
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not sure if you're going to have it, but he talks about feathering, uh, the hammer feathering
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He said with his Cuomo interview in his mind, there could be a difference between, uh, compressing
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the trigger while pulling the hammer back and then releasing the hammer.
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And in his mind, it doesn't feel like he pulled the trigger to cause the hammer to snap back.
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So it might be that he doesn't think he's lying.
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I happen to have a very different theory about all of this.
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So let that be known is that, uh, I think he might've pulled the trigger on purpose out
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of frustration or something thinking there were only blanks in there.
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Uh, I, I, I put together a whole 15 minute analysis, breaking down various interviews he
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gave, um, I think that's probably more plausible.
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Just thought there were blanks, uh, and didn't mean for any of this to happen.
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The question then becomes, how did live rounds get into that gun and onto that set?
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But at the end of the day, we're definitely going to get into that.
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I mean, how, but, but I'm sort of starting at the, the, the, the beginning, which is the,
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Did he fire a live gun, a gun with a live round in it?
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I believe he pulled the trigger and he fired a gun thinking that there were only blanks
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in it or, you know, uh, dummy rounds and that nobody was going to be in danger.
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Um, he now is denying it because a woman died and he accurately foresaw he was going to be
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Is that, is he, um, is he more potentially liable if he actually pulled the trigger?
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Because his main defense is who the hell knew it had a live round in it.
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Well, you see that that's, uh, now again, I'm, I'm, I'm a civil lawyer in Quebec and not
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a criminal lawyer, let alone a criminal lawyer in New Mexico.
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Uh, but there are, there are various charges that can result from this deliberate, deliberate
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act, you know, no negligent homicide, or I think it'd be involuntary manslaughter under, uh,
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I mean, when his reaction was, why the hell was there a live round in it?
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Um, and not how the hell did this thing go off?
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That's, that's telling to me from an interpretive perspective.
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And it's always, why the hell he said it in many interviews, the question that has to
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be answered is why was there a live round in that gun?
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Nobody's going to believe he didn't pull the trigger because I, from my understanding,
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from the physics of it, the only way that that could have gone off without the trigger
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being pulled is if it's in, you know, the, the, the hammers down and something bangs
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the hammer into the primer to trigger the primer.
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Uh, nobody's going to believe he didn't pull the trigger and that his point that he keeps
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bringing up over and over again in every interview, we need to find out the only question that's
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relevant is how did live rounds get there to me, that, that, that confirms the idea that
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He might be trying to pretend in his own mind retroactively.
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And then the question does become, well, he pulled the trigger on purpose.
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No idea that there was a live round in there, although even pulling the trigger on purpose,
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thinking it's blanks, or there's another word I'm looking for this, there's different types
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of dummy rounds, even pulling the trigger then still has risk.
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A lot of my information, by the way, I get from watching these guys, Eric Hunley and Mark
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Robert has a history of life in, in, in Hollywood.
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And he knows, you know, other cases where there was an individual who put a gun to his head
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It was a, didn't this happen with Bruce Lee's son?
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Bruce Lee's was, uh, apparently, uh, something got lodged in the actual gun.
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I think it was, it was a projectile of some sort projectile from the previous shot.
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And then the, the dummy round or the blank had enough projection to cause the piece that
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was stuck in the gun to, to, to go out and kill with enough force.
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But one, one actor put, put a blank gun to his head, pulled the trigger and the concussive
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force of the blank going off, uh, caused him to die from the injuries a couple of days
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So even pulling the trigger, thinking it's blanks, uh, is a different degree of negligence.
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It's not like a, like a cap gun, but my theory aside, the FBI confirms that gun didn't go
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Uh, and then it's just going to be a question of what types of charges and who bears the
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How did live rounds get there is one question, but anybody with Baldwin's experience with
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guns and it conflicts with some of his statements earlier, he knew you'd never pull the trigger
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And he seems to have done both of these things.
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So there might be shared responsibility, but if it doesn't come down at the very least
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to Alec Baldwin, um, in one way or another, we can probably add something else to the list
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I mean, we can definitely talk about the fact that he was an executive producer on the project.
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And whether he should have been overseeing a safer work site for all involved, that's
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But here we're still debating whether he could be subjected to civil or potentially criminal
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Forget the EP role for the guy as the guy who fired the gun and whether he had a greater
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obligation to make sure it really was a cold gun because some of his own fellow fellow actors
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are saying that, you know, George Clooney came out and said, I never rely on the assistant
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Now, that's presuming you would be able to tell.
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And it wasn't just Clooney coming out to say, we all we all check ourselves.
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And we would also never fire the gun if the armorer were not on set.
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And Alec Baldwin did not check the gun himself.
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So even if you don't expand it to he was an executive producer, even if you just keep
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You know, there's some incremental evidence that he may have behaved negligently.
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Well, Megan, I've been corrected multiple times in referring to it as a weapon and not
00:16:42.940
So I've been conditioned now to refer and rightly so to the to these things as firearms.
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There's a number of things there in what you just said.
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First of all, everyone's going to, you know, when something like this happens, come out and
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show how much smarter they are and how much more responsible they are.
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To some extent, I understand Baldwin's position, which is I'm not the last line of defense here.
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I'm not the one to be relied on to open it back up and say, OK, these are dummy rounds.
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Baldwin's biggest problem, because he can't he can't stop talking, is that he comes out
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and says in the George Stephanopoulos Stephanopoulos interview, I would never point a gun at
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I would never pull the trigger, you know, even if it's even if it's empty, because pulling
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the trigger causes, you know, minute damages to the firing pin.
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You know, George Clooney coming out and saying, fine.
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I like to double check, triple check and look at it.
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And I'm probably sufficiently neurotic that I would always do the same thing myself.
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Look at the back of the dummy rounds and say, how do I know that this is not a live
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So I can forgive Alex or at least understand that argument, Alec, that it's not his last
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line to say, am I the one to decide this versus the armorer?
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But can you get over the fact that the reason why the armorer wasn't in the church for that
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I mean, they're shooting a Western using real, real guns, not supposed to be using real ammunition,
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but because of safety protocols for covid, the armor is not in there to inspect for the
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And this could very well be chalked up as a covid accident at its core.
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But what kind of an insane lunatic did not think that she was an essential worker, that
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the armorer, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, was was an essential worker to that scene.
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I mean, that's the person it's probably this person's been sued.
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She's probably I can't remember what her name is, but she there was a woman.
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Like you got you got the names of the people suing the names of the armorer assistant director.
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She is one of the people who's been sued in like the most recent round of lawsuits.
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I don't think he's going to do very well on a civil lawsuit against him.
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Already, Matt Hutchins, the widower of Helena, has filed and settled a lawsuit against
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Baldwin in the in the production company, which we can talk about more later.
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But he's going to he's on the receiving end of others.
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She write the scripts or she she brought the scripts in.
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Mamie, Mamie, Mamie Mitchell, script supervisor.
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She's suing the producers, including Baldwin, alleging assault and intentional infliction
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She's the one who called 911 after it happened and sounded absolutely distraught.
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So other people are going to be suing him and trying to sort of pin it on him.
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And he has already brought in in that case, filed a motion to dismiss.
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Um, he's brought in to that case, the armorer and the assistant director who yelled cold
00:20:06.180
And the armorer, meanwhile, is pointing at that.
00:20:09.540
I think, uh, at their her boss, who I think she's alleging did not run a safe set.
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This is the woman who I was trying to get to before, who if you didn't let the armor on
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the set during covid because of covid restrictions, you're an idiot.
00:20:21.040
There shouldn't have been a scene with a gun without the armor, period.
00:20:24.460
Uh, but secondly, I think it's very interesting because the armorer is blaming the ammo guy,
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I mean, well, everybody's going to go after everybody and not, but the, but the armorer
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versus Seth Kenny is where the game is at in my legal opinion.
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And, and I mean, I say yes, there's not yes and no.
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If the, if Seth Kenny and PDC actually provided live ammunition, um, to the set when they were
00:21:00.360
not supposed to, it's, it's conceivable that Seth Kenny and PDC provided live ammunition
00:21:07.560
I mean, it, it, you could use live ammunition for firing range off offset.
00:21:13.240
But if they were mixed in with dummy rounds, well, that's, that's, I mean, that's, that's
00:21:23.140
That, that, that, that, that's why at the end of the day, there, there's going to have
00:21:28.680
And then the only question is going to be who, you know, how do, how do they apportion the
00:21:35.520
Um, cause, and there's a, there's a concept in, in, at least in Canadian law, I don't
00:21:39.580
know if it's going to be the same under the U S law, but actus novus, like even if someone
00:21:43.800
had done something negligent, did someone else do something further down the line that severed
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any responsibility that could have ever been attributed to the initial actor?
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I'm imagining people are going to say that like, okay, Seth Kenny says, look, I sold you
00:21:55.740
Maybe he has a defense that it was, it wasn't for the set.
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If, if indeed it comes out that live ammunition was mixed with dummy rounds that were sold
00:22:06.100
Well then I definitely see a connection in law.
00:22:08.140
In fact, then the issue is going to be, well, if nobody pulls the trigger, this never happens.
00:22:12.720
Or if the armorer does their job properly, this never happens.
00:22:22.200
It was like, it's a Spider-Man meme on, on, on the interwebs.
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And if I'm responsible, I'm the least responsible.
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Seth Kenny gave her a box or boxes of ammo that had both dummy rounds and live rounds
00:22:42.260
Something she never expected and would never expect.
00:22:44.920
And just for the audience, um, I've had this explained to me the difference between a dummy
00:22:49.320
round and a blank is a blank actually produces smoke and makes a sound.
00:22:55.200
And it's sort of like an imitation bullet with like imitation things about it, like
00:23:01.960
A dummy round is just like a, it's just a lookalike.
00:23:08.380
And these were supposed to be dummy rounds because you can see them in a Colt 45.
00:23:12.880
All you needed to do was see the bullets in the gun so that you would believe this was
00:23:20.260
Yeah, well, that's the, it's the, the, the, the blanks have reduced, uh, projectile
00:23:28.540
There's a number of distinctions which are not necessarily, you know, you don't need to
00:23:31.880
flesh them out in detail and the, the, the gun, the gun aficionados definitely know the
00:23:37.840
But, uh, if, if it turns out that live ammunition was mixed in with, with, with blanks, okay.
00:23:47.200
There's still, um, apparently it's not all that easy to tell the difference either.
00:23:50.900
You have to look at the back of the bullets to see what color the primers.
00:24:00.180
The, the, this armorer was placed in the position in that truck of trying to decide whether
00:24:06.420
these were, you know, putting, loading up these, uh, fire, this firearm.
00:24:09.840
And she's claiming that she was given a box that had both in it.
00:24:14.180
And the way that you would tell is you shake it and it makes a noise.
00:24:22.480
Because the fake one makes a noise or the real one makes a noise, but that's how you check.
00:24:26.500
And, and you have to make sure everything going in there does what the dummy does, which is either
00:24:30.960
they all made the noise or none of them made the noise.
00:24:35.520
The, the, the, the, the, the, those are going to be, you know, yelling at their screens for
00:24:39.400
I can understand if, if they have reduced projectile capacity, there's going to be a
00:24:47.420
If that's going to be the defense, however, there should never have been live rounds on
00:24:52.080
But then the question is whose fault is that Seth Kenny for delivering it, uh, armors for
00:24:56.800
accepting it, producers for allowing it to happen.
00:24:59.740
Everyone will share responsibility in this at the end of the day.
00:25:02.260
uh the only question is apportionment and whether or not people can say this is where the buck stops
00:25:07.700
in terms of my responsibility um but no i mean baldwin's lawsuit makes some allegations um which
00:25:14.880
they're allegations but look you know pretty damning in terms of what was delivered to the set
00:25:19.020
but it's it's you have to see defenses there could be the defense that someone ordered the
00:25:23.740
live rounds for offset shooting uh and so then seth kenny's off the hook i mean in theory
00:25:28.800
so but the reports are that what was in the gun what it was a mixture you had the live round and
00:25:35.640
i think the rest of them were dummy so it's not like she loaded a gun with all live rounds from
00:25:41.880
the wrong box that was on set for a legitimate purpose of some sort you know that that's not
00:25:47.240
possible she loaded one dummy round and i think i'm sorry one live round and the rest of them dummy
00:25:53.820
rounds and they said that they retrieved the boxes from the armorer's truck and they did find more of
00:26:00.060
this combination and so and that that's why she's pointing the finger at the at the uh the ammo guy
00:26:06.500
seth kenny saying you gave me those boxes like that you put me in a position to endanger everybody and
00:26:12.900
he's gonna say a no i didn't and b if i did it's literally your job to tell the difference that's why
00:26:20.600
you're there to to be a fail safe just in case an accident like that happens or something fell over
00:26:26.940
and they in a haste put all the bullets back together in a box and mix them up i mean there's
00:26:31.280
there's an that would be an actus novus they were separate at the beginning something happened and then
00:26:35.480
they just put them all together in a box there's there's conceivable defenses there um but true at
00:26:41.080
the end of the day it's it's it's the armorer who's supposed to know the difference apparently from
00:26:45.680
from baldwin's lawsuit there was also a live round in the rifle so but bottom line what the hell is
00:26:52.320
going on on that set and then bottom line uh how the heck do you make a movie where you have a scene
00:26:58.880
like this but because of covid protocol in the middle of the new mexico desert uh you don't allow
00:27:04.460
the armor to go in can she can you get policy makers involved in this i mean i this this is a
00:27:10.180
question of policy that's having real life impact but end of the day and most people are of this
00:27:14.280
opinion the buck stops with the person who pulled the trigger of a prop gun pointed at a human now
00:27:20.020
before we get back to him back to alex alec um you got the the the ammo guy kenny you got hannah
00:27:29.840
gutierrez reed the armorer who is the dodge she's young but she's the daughter of like the most
00:27:34.640
respected armorer in all of hollywood um and so presumably was well trained though she's very young
00:27:40.500
so we don't know for sure uh and then from her it goes to david halls the assistant director who's
00:27:47.300
the one who handed the weapon to baldwin and yelled cold gun indicating that it did not contain live
00:27:52.600
rounds now this guy he's also being sued in the chain so far to me he's the least culpable this guy
00:28:01.620
doesn't he doesn't know squat had the assistant director doesn't know how is the armorer gonna make
00:28:07.640
mistake of not knowing the difference between the dummy round and the live round and the assistant
00:28:11.580
director whose job encompasses way more than the guns he's supposed to know this is and this this is
00:28:19.360
not to point fingers or try to get people in trouble just conceptually if if hall is not expected to know
00:28:25.620
the difference and in fact does not know the difference it could be argued he then has no
00:28:29.880
business declaring a gun a cold gun a safe gun a prop okay um and so by we don't know what the
00:28:36.440
standard is what the industry standard well i i don't know what the industry standard is but i can
00:28:41.160
tell you the legal standard is if he's if he's reassuring some someone of something that he has
00:28:45.780
no business reassuring them of there's definitely going to be some blame game in the attribution of
00:28:49.900
responsibility but for that's true if if the industry standard is the armorer gives you the gun and
00:28:55.100
and we all rely on the armorer and really the armorer is the last line of defense and that's what
00:29:00.340
every movie set accepts then i don't think this guy is gonna he would he wouldn't be found liable for
00:29:05.300
not knowing himself independently well on the set now as it goes where the armor is not allowed there
00:29:12.180
and then the obligation is passed on to the uh assistant director uh who then makes an affirmative
00:29:17.600
action to say cold gun and gives it to alec you know the bottom the end of the day it's none of this
00:29:23.900
should be happening but uh they're all they're all contributing in one way or another to an
00:29:29.400
ultimately uh the death of a human but what can you say that he he had an action that he proactively
00:29:38.880
did declared it a cold gun and then handed it to alec and then alec uh thinking it's a cold gun because
00:29:44.920
the ad says it is uh should still be treating it like an actual firearm and obviously wasn't so paul's
00:29:52.460
gonna say look i didn't know so why did i say what i said i don't know but at the end of the day
00:29:56.280
alec should have treated like a real gun as is the protocol ended yeah here's one thing um now he
00:30:02.060
i think this is from i'm not sure where we got this i think it may maybe la times maybe uh santa fe
00:30:08.160
county sheriff um dave halls the guy we're talking about assistant director told an investigator that
00:30:13.820
he had not checked all of the rounds in the gun so he did not open it he did not check or if he did
00:30:18.460
open it he didn't check each round and he says as he should have according to an affidavit he said
00:30:24.980
the film's armorer hannah gutierrez reed had opened the gun for him to inspect he advised that he should
00:30:31.620
have checked all of them but he didn't and couldn't recall if she spun the drum i mean this is people who
00:30:40.500
are a second amendment um you know uh supporters are going to say this is exactly what happens when
00:30:45.920
people are totally ignorant uh as relates to the functioning of firearms like okay fine i should
00:30:51.720
have done it these are people treating guns like toys like props on a set without fully appreciating
00:30:57.120
that they are tools that can cause death if they're they're intended to do certain damage by their by
00:31:04.920
their essence um and you have they're just willy-nilly flippantly oh yeah cold gun here i flipped it it's just
00:31:11.500
and now i hand it off to you and now alex like oh yeah i got i got a cold gun let's oh the director
00:31:16.200
is telling me to point it at her i mean i i i have become much more sensitive to second amendment
00:31:22.180
arguments and even with my own you know my own family i think whatever if it's a nerf gun you don't
00:31:28.900
point it at someone let alone a real functional firearm uh even on set and it's not because someone
00:31:35.380
says pointed at me because i want to know if i got the shot that you do it everything about this
00:31:39.700
was dangerous a to z but how did live ammunition get there i i like this point because you're right
00:31:45.940
i maybe i'm giving this assistant director too much of a pass it's like if i if i were placed in charge
00:31:51.980
as the ad if i were the last person to touch the gun before it goes to the guy who is going to be
00:31:58.040
handling it and pointing it at people which is another question about whether he should have done
00:32:01.520
that i would i'd take a bunch of classes i'd make sure i got whatever certification was was
00:32:06.760
necessary i would make myself as knowledgeable if not more than the armorer if i accepted that huge
00:32:13.740
responsibility so i i take your point that's a good point about him but that also brings into
00:32:19.400
yeah go ahead just one other thing like i'm known to be somewhat neurotic if i'm adam if i'm hull
00:32:26.060
i and i'm taking this gun i go outside and a chain of custody i say hannah look at the back i i don't know
00:32:33.020
a dummy round from a live round look at this one last time and i after getting the okay carry it
00:32:38.440
myself and then give it to baldwin um and the idea that this this gun was actually the chain of
00:32:43.800
custody of this of this prop uh there were big gaps in it i think there was an issue of them going to
00:32:50.240
lunch and another issue which we might want to remember to touch on is um hannah gutteres reed saying
00:32:55.040
that one of the bullets she was having trouble fitting it in and she cleaned it off to make it fit
00:32:58.220
um the idea that there's uh open windows of of the chain of custody of the thing is is a big issue
00:33:05.620
but if i'm if i'm hull and hindsight is 2020 but neurosis neurosis is is 2020 going forward i take
00:33:12.300
this out i armorer can't come in i go out make sure that she sees it gives the okay and you know
00:33:17.240
uninterrupted bring it to alec but then it's not that's not a question of saying what you should
00:33:21.780
have done this is a it's a horrible tragedy hindsight is 2020 but sometimes foresight is as well
00:33:28.220
the other person that we haven't yet talked about is the person who oversaw safety on the set props
00:33:37.860
on the set hannah gutteres reads direct report what kind of an environment was this person maintaining
00:33:44.160
what kind of environment were her bosses the producers of the whole show maintaining because
00:33:49.020
there were reports of at least two accidental discharges with the guns prior to this there was
00:33:54.720
a guy i think it was a cameraman who complained that this was not a safe set prior to this he was
00:33:59.540
it was more of like a union complaint but still he was saying this is not a safe set and if there's any
00:34:05.820
evidence at all of this person not providing let's say the actors with appropriate training on how to use
00:34:14.340
the gun and what's expected of you because of budget constraints because of covid restraints because of time
00:34:20.000
constraints that person too could very well be on the hook absolutely and this is why also baldwin in
00:34:27.780
in his interview with cuomo was trying to draw i think a a legal distinction that won't actually
00:34:34.080
be recognized in law between the producers there's there's a line well there's there's various types of
00:34:39.840
producers and alec baldwin was only an artistic uh you know creative type producer didn't have any say in
00:34:45.680
hiring firing production etc was there maybe by name only etc at the end of the day they're all they're
00:34:51.280
all producers and responsible for safety on set whether or not within the industry one only takes
00:34:57.740
care of artistic direction and not hiring and firing um the idea though oh hold on i just i lost my
00:35:04.080
thought there oh but say they're gonna go after this safety issues yeah no the safety issues apparently
00:35:09.460
they were known and you know even according to i think alec baldwin said it in one of the interviews
00:35:14.660
i didn't hear about any safety issues until someone mentioned it in passing but it was mostly about
00:35:19.100
the hotel accommodations and before i could fix the hotel accommodations they all walked off set
00:35:24.080
the day before this happened um to say that there were no warnings i don't think anyone's going to
00:35:29.460
believe when an accidental discharge occurs twice of a of a blank not of a live ammunition a live round
00:35:35.880
everybody knows and if we're going back to you know not to make theories more solid but
00:35:42.420
the idea that it might have been known to some people that there were two accidental discharges
00:35:47.100
and it's no more serious than that people's ears ring for a few seconds you might get into the sort
00:35:52.180
of behavior where it's not that big of a deal if there's another accidental discharge or maybe even
00:35:56.620
a deliberate discharge of a blank uh for whatever the reason so it's uh yeah the past is prologue in a
00:36:04.020
sense and they knew that there were issues there were complaints whether or not alec was fully aware
00:36:09.800
fully in the thick of it i i think even by his own subsequent statements he was made aware of it
00:36:14.960
shortly before the incident and people walked off set the day of and then you continue to do this
00:36:19.960
it's it's just it's schlock schlock business schlock um safety control from beginning to end and
00:36:27.420
unfortunately one person uh has bore the the brunt of that um that negligence well obviously helena
00:36:35.920
hutchins but i will say watching this from the outside i feel bad i feel bad for everyone honestly
00:36:42.040
i even feel bad for baldwin it's such a terrible tragedy and i do believe while they behaved
00:36:47.620
negligently they this was an accident i mean it was not intended by any of them um i haven't seen any
00:36:53.720
evidence to the contrary but i also really feel bad for this young armorer because i see alec baldwin
00:36:58.820
with his multi-million dollar lawyers and pr teams hanging her out to dry and she has no money and
00:37:05.180
she's very young and i can just you can see what's happening his pr machine has decided she's to blame
00:37:10.780
and not him and what does this girl have to defend herself nothing right she's got nothing
00:37:16.660
well i'll second one thought i feel bad for everybody involved as well and genuine even alec baldwin
00:37:24.120
he he might be a loathsome human he might be a political uh you know he might be a detestable
00:37:30.180
political person as well i don't think well i don't think anybody intended this to happen uh period
00:37:36.820
and and it's it's devastating and disastrous for everyone involved even even uh mitchell who's who's
00:37:43.480
suing as well you know it's not just because nothing happened to them that they're not suffering
00:37:47.500
trauma from having witnessed this and having been in his presence um but from a legal perspective
00:37:52.860
uh i'm obviously uh if i'm baldwin being sued i'm obviously trying to not pass the buck in a in a
00:38:00.740
irresponsible sense he might still be to blame for having pulled the trigger but i i would obviously
00:38:05.900
as his attorney tell you're going after the people who you think you know should have known that those
00:38:10.600
live rounds were there or who may have brought them in on their own because typically the truth comes
00:38:16.000
out at trial when evidence is presented there might be really stupid reasons for which that live
00:38:20.700
ammunition was on set and it might have to do with negligence by or even worse in the sense that it
00:38:27.440
was brought on deliberately when they were having fun you know during off hours shooting live rounds
00:38:31.760
in the desert you know got to kill time if that that might be the case or it might just be the case
00:38:36.920
that she should have known and she should never put baldwin in that position even if he should never
00:38:40.240
pull the trigger as his attorney i'd be i'd be doing the same thing money money aside this is actually
00:38:46.420
you know one of those issues where it's a question of principle and clearing one's name in as much as
00:38:51.120
one's name can be cleared but at the end of the day he still pulled the trigger so even if she were
00:38:55.420
negligent and he succeeds partially there he still pulled the trigger himself of a of a real gun
00:39:01.120
pointing at a real human with real tragic consequences well and also doesn't seem to feel
00:39:06.940
any guilt about it that's what he told george stephanopoulos which wound up getting him in some hot
00:39:11.360
water with helena hudges widow widower here's alec baldwin with uh stephanopoulos on guilt top five
00:39:18.580
your emotions are so clearly so right there on the surface you felt shock you felt anger you felt
00:39:28.500
sadness do you feel guilt no no i feel that there is i i feel that that that someone is responsible
00:39:38.820
for what happened and i can't say who that is but i know it's not me and then matt hutchins comes out
00:39:46.540
stand by because i want to talk about this admission the husband was upset but not just by that but by
00:39:52.380
everything he said in that stephanopoulos interview and this is what he said over on the today show
00:39:57.040
watching him i just felt so angry just so angry to see him talk about her death so publicly in such
00:40:07.340
a detailed way and then to not accept any responsibility after having just described
00:40:13.760
killing he said essentially he felt grief but no guilt almost sounds like he was the victim
00:40:20.980
and hearing him blame helena in the interview and and shift responsibility to others and
00:40:30.680
and seeing him cry about it i just feel like are we really supposed to feel bad about you mr baldwin
00:40:38.900
what do you make of that whole thing uh i don't believe baldwin when he says i don't feel guilt
00:40:46.060
it's it's the no no it's it's the it's he's trying to reassure himself and i think this is
00:40:51.380
self-protection sort of psychological defense mechanisms he's trying to convince himself he
00:40:55.980
doesn't feel guilty i think he does setting that aside to say that he doesn't feel guilt optically is
00:41:01.200
terrible uh messaging wise it's terrible he should feel guilty now whether or not he feels responsible
00:41:06.860
is different than guilt but of course he should feel guilty as far as what uh hutchins husband said
00:41:12.440
he said i i have a hundred percent i agree with it giving this interview is is rubbing the trauma in
00:41:18.500
the face of of the family um in the interview suggesting it was her fault well she told me to do
00:41:25.920
it she told me to do what i said i would never do because i have such experience with firearms
00:41:30.960
is a mutually uh a lot incompatible defense but it's it's it's insensitive he should he would have
00:41:37.520
been better off just shutting up legally and also from the perspective of the grieving family to see
00:41:42.920
this guy doing you know doing interviews with george stephanopoulos the softest softball of an
00:41:47.400
interview you can possibly imagine to effectively paint himself as a victim yes the husband is
00:41:52.880
grieving and right to be pissed off and i know and stephanopoulos let him i mean at least act the role
00:42:00.460
of an impartial interviewer to say what do you mean you don't feel guilty this is outrageous you killed
00:42:07.560
a woman i understand you're saying it was unintentional but how can you not feel guilt
00:42:11.480
like at least act it if you're not actually feeling the indignation i mean this is the problem with gma
00:42:16.820
when it came to the jussie smollett case too and robin roberts gave him the the biggest butt kiss
00:42:22.540
in ever given in all of interviewing and they wound up embarrassed because we all know that that was a
00:42:28.380
hoax with so said a jury so in any event uh just more media malpractice there um i i wonder though
00:42:35.860
what's going to happen with matt hutchins the widower because he did file a lawsuit it's been
00:42:39.960
settled that one was taken care of quick and undoubtedly alec baldwin's insurance company on
00:42:45.100
the movie set paid it i don't know what the settlement was but i'm sure it was a big one
00:42:48.820
and weirdly one of the terms of the settlement was that matt hutchins
00:42:54.080
would be an executive producer of the revived movie rust as it continues shooting and gets made
00:43:06.940
and then released with this same cast i i can't i don't i got nothing david i don't know i don't get
00:43:15.160
okay i'll i'll um there are theories floating around some are mine and some are not mine um
00:43:21.400
the the settlement is to be expected i mean the settlement is the admission of guilt that you
00:43:28.460
know he could say i'm not settling this i want to go to i want to go to civil trial and get a judgment
00:43:32.020
it'll make me feel better than the settlement settlement is as good as admission of responsibility
00:43:35.840
from what i understand finances are not uh you know a meaningful consideration here so
00:43:40.900
it's not as though this was about the money from hutchins family from what i understand
00:43:45.320
very well to do regardless um it's the executive producer aspect which will raise a number of
00:43:52.640
eyebrows now and not to be too cynical and to give uh the benefit of cynical doubt to the husband
00:44:00.320
it's conceivable you know internally he says i don't want my wife's death to be in vain at the very
00:44:06.000
least this should be her legacy finish the project um and maybe in his mind he says okay the way the
00:44:11.720
way to commemorate her is to be executive producer and make sure that this happens um i i don't know
00:44:17.200
there are some people alec baldwin i mean that's the thing that's like okay maybe it's one thing it's
00:44:21.700
like we're gonna start anew we're gonna have different actors we're gonna you know it's the same
00:44:26.160
cast he's going to oversee some set with alec baldwin i mean people are going to go see this out of a
00:44:32.040
voyeuristic ghoulish desire to see the scene in which the woman was killed like i just can't
00:44:40.040
understand god forbid i ever knew somebody who suffered a tragedy like this my advice would be
00:44:44.680
run run this is not something you want to revive i i don't know anything about i think the lord the
00:44:51.420
god the husband's a lawyer he's not even in the film business yeah and i won't get into too many
00:44:56.680
things theories that can either be proven or disproven i can understand the idea that he wants
00:45:01.840
his wife's memory to live on and this project should not end with her with her death okay uh
00:45:08.300
executive producer from what i understand of the industry and this is coming from people who are
00:45:12.120
smarter than me or know it better it's typically they like they call it a sort of an honorary title
00:45:16.900
it's about somebody yes it's to it's to show someone raised money for the movie so maybe maybe he
00:45:22.060
thinks or just to show you're important yeah or or just you know on to honor and maybe that's the way
00:45:27.880
he's he's he's visualizing visualizing this in his mind one of the theories and again this is a shout
00:45:33.740
out to eric hunley and mark robert some of the theories about politics in this is that they they
00:45:38.520
sort of if you want to protect alec baldwin for whatever the reason political connections stardom
00:45:44.260
whatever a way to try to put some pressure on prosecutors not to prosecute settle between the
00:45:51.400
two main parties and so that you say well look that there's been some justice here but not only
00:45:56.640
is there a settlement we're going to continue production of the movie it would be very bizarre
00:46:00.520
if you started pressing charges against the people who are now making the movie together in the to the
00:46:05.340
extent that some of them stay in the same production i suspect some of them would not be in the continued
00:46:09.680
production others would so if they settle the plaintiff in the civil suit and the uh extended victim in a
00:46:17.400
criminal suit says well now we're partners in this so it'd be very weird if you actually prosecute my
00:46:22.820
partner in this project well that you know that could be sort of the wink wink nudge nudge let's not
00:46:28.380
press charges against baldwin um that would be a more sinister way of looking at it for the time being
00:46:33.960
you know hutchins is a grieving widow he's got he's got a kid who's going to grow up without a mother now
00:46:38.820
uh i i'll i'll go to the side of he wants to see this project come to fruition he doesn't want his wife's
00:46:45.220
death uh to be the you know to to you know be extinguished with with this her project which was
00:46:51.060
you know she was in love with this project as well uh but people will have theories and they're not
00:46:55.560
going to be wrong for a hypothesizing as to what the heck is going on the whole thing is shocking to
00:47:01.120
me it's shocking to me that he would want the project to go forward with alec baldwin and that he
00:47:05.800
would want his name on i just you know god bless this man he's been through a horrific tragedy i just
00:47:11.540
to me it's like all this is happening so fast i do wonder whether he's going to regret that someday
00:47:16.420
because he's he suffered the loss he he sued he watched this guy go all over television defending
00:47:21.940
himself and smearing his wife and then he settled all within this like eight month period it's too too
00:47:29.000
much too soon for this guy and and now they're going to resume the the production i assume they're
00:47:34.020
not going to have the same armorer and the same ammo provider and the same ad i mean you you assume but
00:47:40.980
i mean who the heck knows uh there's got there's continuity issues not only in terms of actors but
00:47:45.700
in terms of style etc i suspect stylistically it's easier to have a shift or not notice a difference but
00:47:51.760
obviously with the actors who can't um but yeah it's it's it's bizarre enough that people will ask
00:47:58.100
questions i don't know if there was um in the settlements if there's a a portion of revenue
00:48:03.680
splitting from the movie but he's an executive producer one can assume or imagine that that might be
00:48:07.960
sure there is although yeah revenue might not be the big issue but it is true megan it's a good
00:48:12.820
point like some people are going to see this because they want to just see the horror others
00:48:17.680
are going to you know i think most people are not going to say i want to see this movie would have
00:48:21.160
been otherwise it's i want to go uh live a piece of this this tragedy um and so it's going to be sort
00:48:28.000
of a gawking rubberneck yes exactly i was just going to use that term rubberneck it's the same
00:48:32.220
reason we rubberneck you know god forgive us all we do it we want to see what's there we're all
00:48:38.280
fascinated by our own mortality we all know it's going to come for us eventually we hope it's not
00:48:42.840
going to come in a gruesome way like a car accident or an accidental shooting but there's something very
00:48:47.520
human about wanting more information about a situation like this and that and then it can veer
00:48:52.340
over into exploitative and this will because there will be people not wishing any of these characters
00:48:58.100
well who will be like yeah yeah oh you know i mean it's just going to be it's going to be gross
00:49:03.160
bottom line you still have investors and you still have interests that don't want to see this end now
00:49:07.840
because it's it's it's it's a non-monetizable uh waste as is so you even have economic interests
00:49:13.900
which are very sinister which like okay forget the tragedy and by the way or even exploit the tragedy
00:49:18.580
it'll make it even more marketable we'll make more money off of this and we'll get back that
00:49:21.980
sounds more like hollywood that sounds more like that but now what as we divvy up the responsibilities
00:49:26.960
between the guy with the ammo the armorer the ad alec baldwin the woman who oversaw the the props
00:49:34.200
on the set and sort of ran herd on the crew um who gets rehired could be potentially relevant like
00:49:40.940
who makes that decision and is it an admission by the production company if the if the armorer
00:49:47.740
doesn't come back they think it was her if the ammo guy doesn't come back they think it was him
00:49:53.020
right like that could be interesting too i well i as far as that there's an easy answer to that i
00:49:58.540
don't expect uh maybe mitchell to come back uh and and i don't think anyone she's the one suing the
00:50:03.260
script she's the one supervising yeah i don't expect the armorer to come back because i think some of
00:50:07.220
these people are going to have experienced professional trauma to such a degree that they're
00:50:11.240
going to find other lines of work right now um yeah so i i i you know i've heard people you know
00:50:16.180
discuss that like okay if this person doesn't come back they're tacitly blaming them i think that
00:50:20.960
the people behind the camera are probably not going to come back just because it would be too
00:50:25.860
traumatic the question is going to be with with suza uh is he going to come back as the director
00:50:29.940
that i could that i could see happening uh definitely a different armorer if only for
00:50:35.560
insurance purposes i mean who's going to insure this movie going forward if the person who was
00:50:39.720
responsible for a death or involved in it culpable or not is back on something no a new new armorer
00:50:46.960
uh i i don't know what the other what the other um positions would be that you'd have to fill for
00:50:52.740
liability insurance reasons stylistically i could see i could see the director coming back
00:50:57.200
not the assistant director and baldwin odyssey has to be there um but no yeah i i could you could
00:51:03.500
easily explain away not coming back without it meaning any form of culpability i can't imagine joel
00:51:09.560
soos is going to come back to wounded by the same bullet that killed helena but who the hell knows
00:51:13.580
now wait so let me let let's talk a little bit about the civil suits and what's going to happen
00:51:18.800
criminally because now the sheriff's investigation is complete he's handed over uh his file to the da
00:51:25.260
mary carmack altwise santa fe county da i don't know if i'm pronouncing that correctly a-l-t-w-i-e-s
00:51:31.900
and she's going to have some assistance brought in because they sought extra funding saying that
00:51:36.540
they may have as many as four people to indict that could have just been puffery to try to get as
00:51:41.660
much of a budget as possible for the da's office we don't know no one's been charged yet um but
00:51:47.940
looking at it yourself we'll do the criminal then we'll do the civil all all all of the above likely
00:51:53.900
to get charged they say as many as four so that that's we did um ammo armor ad alec and maybe prop gal
00:52:02.500
that's five so well and six if you include the company no you wouldn't criminally we won't do
00:52:09.660
the company um so i'd say prop gal is the most she's probably the first to be eliminated from
00:52:14.760
the chain of potential criminal charges though she could be involved civilly depending i see i'm not
00:52:20.080
totally clear on the evidence that um about the intermingling of live rounds with dummy rounds
00:52:26.380
on set so depending on that factor i might be inclined to think that um kenny might not face
00:52:33.720
criminal charges just because i don't know what the evidence is in terms of what was delivered
00:52:38.000
what was it well yeah the ammo guy was it intermingled when it was delivered in baldwin's
00:52:42.140
lawsuit you know they show some pictures of a messy looking business but that's that's neither here
00:52:47.700
nor there and four pictures does not characterize a business but i don't know what the evidence there is
00:52:52.920
we know that there were live rounds on set the question is we know the armorer is saying it but
00:52:57.820
we don't know whether it's true uh i think it's definitively known that there were a lot oh that
00:53:03.800
the armorer was saying that they were intermingled yes she's blaming him she's she's definitely blaming
00:53:08.500
the the ammo guy of course for sure but in terms of criminal charges and probable cause seth kenny
00:53:14.740
that's one where i have a big question mark but it does depend on the evidence that they have in
00:53:19.020
terms of what was delivered what was ordered what was delivered um but criminally i would i would be
00:53:24.960
hard-pressed to not think um and we're talking like you know uh uh involuntary manslaughter in
00:53:30.900
this case like where the negligence comes in under new mexico law under my cursory understanding from
00:53:35.500
what i've what i've looked up or or heard as well from others um the negligence comes in with
00:53:41.140
involuntary manslaughter baldwin it should be a no-brainer uh in terms of the most obvious charge
00:53:47.600
um the armorer the ad you know potentially i mean this is all contributive to a death um so
00:53:56.020
involuntary manslaughter i'd go with four and possibly five but i i might my biggest caveat is
00:54:03.180
with the with seth kenny uh the production guy interesting the product that raises a good point
00:54:08.740
because she's definitely gonna allege that the armorer is definitely gonna say it was him him him
00:54:12.920
he he's patient zero seth kenny if it weren't for him and his screwing up of the ammo none of this
00:54:17.960
would have happened but it's one thing to say it it's another thing to prove it and how does she
00:54:21.440
prove that he delivered mixed rounds in the same box to her that's that's a tall order even more
00:54:27.940
it's what evidence they would have to charge so it wouldn't even it wouldn't be what she has to
00:54:31.800
prove it's what evidence do they have to even charge seth kenny uh so i mean well her testimony
00:54:37.000
her testimony is evidence true and so that and then well that's true but there has to be harder
00:54:42.720
evidence in terms of uh purchase orders delivery somebody or maybe somebody was in the truck with
00:54:47.860
her maybe some maybe maybe somebody after the accident went back to the truck and saw and saw
00:54:55.900
exactly what was there like a mixed you know boxes and box if there were boxes and boxes of mixed
00:55:00.560
you'd be much more likely to blame it on the ammo guy than there was a spill and this ridiculous
00:55:05.520
armorer completely blew off every responsibility and just threw them all in there it's if that's
00:55:12.140
the case that i mean one would deserve to get charged if they delivered blank and dummy blank and live
00:55:17.680
rounds in the same case in the same box i i don't see how they cannot charge anybody at the end of the
00:55:22.820
day someone got killed through an accident um it's not up for the the prosecutors to say oh you know
00:55:30.800
people people feel bad and let's move on uh someone died there was clearly negligence somewhere
00:55:36.840
and it might just have to come out through the evidence who bears what portion of the responsibility
00:55:41.220
but yeah four or five charges seem realistic and probable at this point in time criminal what role is
00:55:48.520
alec baldwin's celebrity gonna have in all this if he gets charged you know both with the da
00:55:54.100
da's are human you know they they tend to be bowled over by big names and certainly juries you know
00:56:00.860
it's uh new mexico is not la they're probably not as used to seeing big name defendants come through
00:56:08.860
courts i don't know i just worry that his celebrity may have an outsized role in the charges
00:56:14.900
i i'm tainted by how much i've seen politics infiltrate and ruin everything i think the political
00:56:20.660
side of it might have the bigger impact uh that's a good point too it's it's a it's a known fact he's
00:56:25.560
a pretty vocal democrat supporter democrat donor from what i understand but that politics and celebrity
00:56:32.460
are you know basically the same thing with different angles um yeah that could come into play there could
00:56:39.100
be some sympathy but at the end of the day also from my understanding the involuntary manslaughter
00:56:43.420
i think it's like either a minimum a maximum of 18 months so it's like at the end of the day they
00:56:49.360
they might it might be short sentences that are symbolic of sorts but that some form of justice
00:56:54.520
has to occur at the criminal side but we'll see if no charges it's um in it'll be mind-blowing
00:57:02.900
flabbergasting and i will say yet again politics ruins everything because politically speaking if this
00:57:08.420
were the other way around they would be using it and exploiting it for the purposes of making a point
00:57:13.520
about firearms and second amendment issues they would they would weaponize it to make the point
00:57:18.720
if they decide not to press charges here one can only assume that they are invertedly weaponizing
00:57:23.700
another aspect of of politics that's a good point you're saying if this were an open republican actor
00:57:29.020
like a clint eastwood james wood what would be the sympathy if it were james woods and i like james
00:57:35.320
woods i'm not saying this because i don't know i get it imagine imagine if it were james woods i mean
00:57:39.380
this would be john a media field day john boy can't think of another one uh uh well they don't really come
00:57:45.260
out i don't know tina carano who am i thinking about the the the dirty jobs guy mike mike roe
00:57:52.320
it would be a field day uh but it's alec baldwin and so you know george stefanopoulos the cleanup guy
00:57:59.820
interviews him yeah no it's the same way that they're covering for this ftx guy who donated all
00:58:05.820
this you know these billions well he raised billions and he donated tens of millions to democrats
00:58:10.480
and the new york times writes about him like good guy hard in the right place may have made a sad
00:58:15.660
little mistake in a difficult industry gets it gets even worse i don't know if you saw the washington
00:58:19.740
post but the washington post it's not even a puff piece it's outright propaganda the headline or at
00:58:25.100
least one of the persons tweeted um the ftx crypto going bust or collapsing frustrates this
00:58:31.640
individual's uh ability to prevent pandemics something along those lines like like he was he because
00:58:36.920
he was donating so much money to preventing pandemics that the collapse is going to frustrate
00:58:41.120
this philanthropist uh desire to prevent the next pandemic it's it's it's it's in your face at this
00:58:47.340
point but uh just imagine like what would have been the different angle from the media had the politics of
00:58:52.340
this situation been different if he had donated millions to figure out whether this came from a lab
00:58:57.360
and the the side effects of the vaccine can you imagine how they would it's nuts but it's also
00:59:03.140
the the ftx is is a is a rabbit hole for another day but my guess it's no it's a good one i will say
00:59:09.620
i love the fact that the guy admitted to the vox reporter that it was all bullshit all the woke
00:59:13.680
nonsense was just to tell the left what they wanted to hear he said it he said it out loud he was like
00:59:18.180
great i i'm so glad that like he basically mocked them like you're so stupid you and all your dumb
00:59:24.680
puff pieces i was never on your team i was using you assholes to cover up my shit and you bought it
00:59:30.200
hook line and sinker i am like but what's worse than that is like someone said um who was it or
00:59:36.520
just ask the question you know how did these two dweebs dupe people into investing they didn't do
00:59:41.780
people they there were people celebrities investors who were for whatever the reason vouching for these
00:59:49.140
two people who couldn't convince an ordinary investor to put money in how these what was going
00:59:54.100
on here it's if there's a deeper story to all of this but uh as as the evidence unfolds we'll see
00:59:58.920
we'll see where that goes all right let's talk about gloria allred and uh mamie mitchell who we've
01:00:07.680
mentioned a couple of times here who is the script supervisor uh suing the producers as i said alleging
01:00:13.420
assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress intentional infliction here's gloria from
01:00:19.220
a november 2021 press conference mr baldwin should have assumed that the gun in question was loaded
01:00:27.000
unless and until it was demonstrated to him that it was not or checked by him that it was not loaded
01:00:36.440
even if the assistant director made an alleged statement to mr baldwin that the gun he was handing
01:00:45.020
to mr baldwin was a quote cold gun end quote mr baldwin should not have relied on such a statement
01:00:55.840
mr baldwin chose to play russian roulette when he fired a gun without checking it
01:01:04.400
and this uh it she went on to say in her claim again uh filed november of last year because now
01:01:11.380
it's been upheld after a motion to dismiss that there was nothing in the script about the gun being
01:01:16.980
discharged by baldwin or any other person they're saying it was not in the script for him to fire
01:01:22.140
once again if he fired he did it on his own it was like a joyride well he didn't mean to he says he
01:01:29.500
didn't pull the trigger which would necessarily imply he did not mean to pull the trigger if he did
01:01:33.600
or he did and i don't think that's the the salient point first of all from from that from that that was
01:01:39.820
a zoomed in or cropped in image from that interview when she was uh presenting the case with mimi mitchell
01:01:45.040
next to her behind them was a big a big banner of the name of the law firm which i thought was
01:01:49.780
i thought it was classic gloria yeah it wouldn't give lawyers a good name to begin with if we ever
01:01:55.140
deserved it but it was it was it was very in your face um but her arguments there are pretty
01:02:02.320
even poorly described because she says it was up to alec to check the gun to make sure it was it was
01:02:07.780
empty well no because if you're using blanks or dummies because when you're having extreme close-up
01:02:13.700
an ecu as they say in the industry it has to have bullets in so that you're not having a close-up
01:02:17.880
of a gun that doesn't have bullets in it nobody's gonna buy it so even by her own statements it wasn't
01:02:23.000
up to alec to make sure it was empty it's going to be arguable as to whether or not it was at the
01:02:28.220
end of the day bottom line up to alec to make sure that the rounds in it were dummy or blanks but one
01:02:34.140
thing for sure at the end of the day it was up to alec not to ever pull that trigger uh certainly
01:02:38.460
certainly if it's also true that nothing called for it in the script which by all accounts nothing did
01:02:43.220
because this was a rehearsal just to get a close-up of the gun so she had some too too bad
01:02:48.400
or weaker arguments that i think she tried to correct in that longer interview by saying you
01:02:54.180
know even if hall said it was a cold gun he shouldn't have relied on it he could have relied
01:02:58.900
on hall that it was a cold gun but he still should never have pulled the trigger period and so now that
01:03:03.760
the fbi has concluded it didn't go off on its own as if we needed an eight-month fbi investigation to
01:03:08.820
conclude that he should not have pulled the trigger period even if he were within his rights to
01:03:13.940
conclude or assume that it was a cold gun with blanks because he was assured of that
01:03:17.820
so this is the big civil lawsuit right now in which everybody's pointing the finger at each other
01:03:21.800
because it's just withstood a motion to dismiss which is very very bad news for alec baldwin um
01:03:26.700
that's that was the big his big chance to get rid of it was on the papers and the judges said no i'm
01:03:30.720
not getting rid of it on the papers so he's going to have to go through discovery and he's going to
01:03:34.300
have to either settle or go to a jury and now he's brought in the armorer she she's bringing in the
01:03:40.600
ammo guy and um a little bit of color on that too just to add to our earlier discussion they're saying
01:03:47.700
uh she she is accusing um seth kenny the ammo guy of supplying her with mislabeled dummy ammunition
01:03:56.140
that included live rounds that's what it says uh and then also describes a rushed and chaotic
01:04:01.360
environment on the set which created a quote perfect storm for safety breaches again that
01:04:05.820
goes back to the executive producers it goes back to her immediate supervisor and what that person
01:04:10.820
did to make sure that hannah gutierrez reed was able to do her job safely and they train the actor
01:04:15.720
safely and do all the things that you're supposed to do there's also been a series of text messages
01:04:20.240
released um between hannah gutierrez reed and seth kenny the the armorer and the ammo guy the sheriff's
01:04:27.500
has released a trove of documents um she asks kenny whether she can shoot hot rounds on a movie set
01:04:34.840
sounds almost like you know for fun like in our downtime kenny warns her never to shoot live ammo
01:04:41.080
out of prop guns calling it a serious mistake that quote always ends in tears but gutierrez reed
01:04:47.560
brushes him off telling him quote i'm still gonna shoot mine the records indicate an email from lane
01:04:53.520
looper a camera assistant to production manager roe walters about gun safety concerns saying quote
01:04:58.600
during the filming of gunfights on this job things are often played very fast and loose so far there
01:05:04.160
have been two accidental weapons discharges to be clear there are no safety meetings and uh just one
01:05:11.440
other thing as i mentioned her the the armorer's dad is thal reed and he's like the most legendary
01:05:18.740
armorer in hollywood he told investigators that he once brought live ammo to a training session
01:05:24.800
for seth kenny who kept some of that ammo according to the affidavit so this is him trying to help his
01:05:31.280
daughter by saying maybe seth got the ammo from me and mixed it in there i don't know whether it's
01:05:36.060
going to be helpful or not but we're starting to see potentially the chain into how those bullets got
01:05:40.640
on set how it wasn't intentional but it was very negligent and how if this armorer really did do
01:05:47.060
shooting with the live rounds someplace on the set for fun like her liability just went through the
01:05:53.800
roof it's um it this is the unfortunate thing like in law it's not a question of who you like who you
01:05:59.140
feel bad for i mean it's it's a game of chess where you just can anticipate the arguments or the next
01:06:04.460
moves it's one of two things and i i good good thing you brought up that text thread because there
01:06:11.160
were rumors of i think it's called plinking where they were shooting live rounds on set you're you're in
01:06:16.460
the desert time to kill have a little fun but even by hannah's own let's just take it at its word
01:06:22.620
she she discovered that there was live rounds mixed in with the dummy rats a lawyer my question is going
01:06:28.720
to be when did you discover that because if you discovered it at any moment prior to the incident
01:06:33.200
that's when you shut everything down that's what she's gonna say after for sure she's gonna say i had
01:06:39.080
no idea well yeah i went back afterwards and then noticed that she'll say afterwards but then you
01:06:43.980
gotta you gotta reconcile that with uh her asking seth kenny about shooting live rounds or hot rounds
01:06:48.660
on set where it sounds like people knew that there were hot rounds on set they might have just gotten
01:06:52.500
mixed up they might have forgot that they left one round in in in the gun after they were having
01:06:57.100
target practice so oh my god but but the question is when did anybody know that they were mixed in if
01:07:01.720
it was any time before that you shut everything down the absence of of or the lack of uh security
01:07:07.920
meetings and all this stuff it's going to be a set issue it's going to be a production issue
01:07:11.240
but also you know that doesn't absolve the armor it's going to be an armor issue if they're not
01:07:16.760
having safety meetings someone's got to speak up and say something and if it's your job to ensure
01:07:21.620
safety on that on that aspect of the film and you say nothing production also but people are hired to do
01:07:28.780
their jobs so it's um you can anticipate the arguments and what the evidence is going to have
01:07:33.760
to be one way or the other but that that text thread and that question is very damning and there
01:07:39.760
were rumors that people were firing live rounds or plinking uh all allegations and everyone has to
01:07:45.000
bear in mind baldwin's allegations are not proven fact not nor are mitchell's in her suit uh but yeah
01:07:50.920
there's there's serious questions as to what and when well and alec baldwin's countersuit really lays out
01:07:57.920
what we're discussing he has sued hannah gutierrez reed the film's armorer uh he has sued dave halls the
01:08:04.360
first assistant director who said cold gun and gave him the gun sarah zachary the crew member
01:08:09.440
in charge of props who we mentioned and seth kenny who was the primary supplier of guns and ammo to
01:08:16.000
the film set and he alleged they have not fulfilled they did not fulfill their professional duty
01:08:20.580
to maintain safety on the set now alec baldwin previously when he was looking at a lawsuit and
01:08:27.520
he hadn't yet fired back forgive the pun um he didn't much like it when you sue somebody
01:08:33.980
who um has no money which i think none of these people does here's what he said about lawsuits in
01:08:41.520
general getting filed in this case it's not eight what you have is a certain group of people litigants
01:08:47.740
and whatever on whatever side who their attitude is well the people who likely seem negligent have no
01:08:55.720
money and the people who have money are not negligent but we're not going to let that stop us from doing
01:09:02.520
what we need to do in terms of litigation so we have people that are suing people that they think
01:09:06.700
are deep pockets litigants but they're going to be able to well why sue people if you're not going
01:09:10.740
to get money that's what you're doing it for okay good question why are you doing it alec no it's
01:09:16.620
it's it's pathological okay he's he's he just needs to shut up i mean i i made him uh uh i produced an
01:09:24.120
analysis a little back just shut up alex like do what those pot brother lawyers do shut the blank up
01:09:30.240
stop talking he's he's portraying himself as the victim for being sued because he's got deep
01:09:35.140
pockets he pulled the trigger like right i understand that alec you pulled the trigger
01:09:41.040
you're not the victim for getting sued because someone died as a result of you pulling the
01:09:45.000
trigger and he keeps coming out with these statements publicly as though he's the victim
01:09:48.860
at the end of this and it's just such a stupid thing to say but he's like i'm rich that's the reason
01:09:54.180
they're suing me because i'm rich that's it well i mean everyone has insurance all these people
01:09:58.580
are going to be covered by insurance in the civil suit they should be covered by the insurance uh
01:10:02.580
that was provided to the movie set unless they did something intentional which would take them
01:10:06.800
outside of the coverage but in any event none of them has any money so they're judgment proof it's
01:10:10.940
really about if these people get criminally charged they're going to take a lot more seriously but a
01:10:14.940
civil suit that doesn't mean anything to these people they don't have two nickels to rub together i
01:10:19.000
presume well that and that's my understanding as well as that you know they're young they they don't have
01:10:23.520
assets and and even if they did it would require a lot of assets to settle or pay for a judgment on
01:10:29.220
this if one is is rendered um but i mean i just say from the legal perspective baldwin turning around
01:10:34.860
and counter suing people who are already defendants to maybe mitchell's lawsuit it it doesn't change
01:10:40.940
much from their perspective they're going to have to defend regardless um but i from a legal perspective
01:10:46.020
it's obviously the thing that alec baldwin should have done sympathy sympathy be damned they might have
01:10:50.320
no money um it's if someone put a live round it in baldwin's uh prop gun even if he pulled the trigger
01:10:57.940
uh he you know legally speaking he might be partly responsible but they are certainly also partly
01:11:04.860
responsible and i i would have i would have done the same thing and also recommended he do the same
01:11:09.040
thing forget the optics it's it's not i would have too but i probably wouldn't have gone out there and
01:11:15.220
said oh you know you don't sue anybody how did what was the last line i forget but he's just he just he
01:11:21.200
just can't be quiet and and it's it's just terrible all these things the internet's forever the the
01:11:26.720
people piece these things together and it's just they're dumb things to say just be quiet there's an
01:11:31.140
investigation going on but he cannot i guess to some extent can't stay out of the limelight can't stay
01:11:36.700
out of the the spotlight uh that's probably part part and parcel of what it means to be a celebrity or
01:11:41.540
want to pursue that life but uh man why would you sue people who have no money that's what you just
01:11:46.320
did that's what i wouldn't have said that i would have said if i'm if i get sued i'm gonna point the
01:11:50.740
finger at the people who i who really did the wrongdoing um and it wasn't it wasn't yours truly
01:11:55.440
but really the number one lesson is shut that you shut up scf you stop talking make it i don't know if
01:12:00.960
you've ever seen this ad by these guys called the pop brothers at law and they say if you get pulled
01:12:04.920
over the cops the brothers shut the app like just shut the f up just don't talk you can't say
01:12:09.700
anything wrong if you don't say anything but baldwin stephanopoulos roadside interviews in maine
01:12:15.220
it's his narcissism that i i'm not i'm not a psychiatrist i cannot clinically diagnose without
01:12:21.380
having met anybody but it sure looks like that it looks like he he's in love with himself and he
01:12:27.440
thinks he's going to succeed in convincing others of what he has already convinced himself um but my
01:12:32.900
goodness you you piece together some of those statements they're they are mutually contradictory
01:12:37.560
uh and they will certainly be used against them uh at a later point civilly or criminally
01:12:43.160
all right so at this point awaiting the final decision um do you think if indicted for these
01:12:50.140
charges that you know criminally negligent homicide um unintentional involuntary manslaughter do you
01:12:57.120
think that there is a realistic chance any of these people could be convicted criminally based on what
01:13:01.920
we know now um i know i i i couldn't venture that far out uh what that case about the twilight zone
01:13:08.800
guy who who got killed under the helicopter him and two kids back in the day uh and the director got
01:13:14.360
acquitted um i mean that's if anybody knows if you have a producer who can pull up the name i think
01:13:19.900
guy's name was moro or marrow um but it was it was another death on on a hollywood set and they they
01:13:25.560
got acquitted but by a narrow narrow margin uh this this is this is big uh this is in the spotlight
01:13:32.620
people will be shocked and appalled if they you know i forget who said it recently no one's above
01:13:38.380
the law but uh we've seen people locked up for years for much less and we've seen people in pretrial
01:13:44.660
detention for non-violent uh charges someone someone is going to have to be pushed on on a sword here
01:13:52.560
but whether or not they you know whether or not they serve lengthy periods of time someone has to
01:13:57.620
get convicted of something otherwise people are going to say two-tiered system and that no one is
01:14:03.640
above the law is absolute rubbish although i think a lot of people are already thoroughly convinced of
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that in any event well how about that that female cop in minnesota who got convicted um after she shot
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a man driving his car porter kim porter and she thought she was reaching for her taser very clearly no
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and even disputed that she did not mean to shoot him with a gun but she she made a mistake it was an
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accident and made a mistake in a circumstance where she would have from my understanding otherwise been
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uh entitled to use lethal force right so right it's she's sitting in a prison right now so yeah it will
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be a look very much like a two-tier system of justice one for the rich and famous and wealthy and
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hard-left democrat and another for cop moms who have never gotten in trouble their entire 27-year
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career and one night make a terrible mistake which is what alec baldwin did right terrible mistake best
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case scenario for him uh when there was no lawful reason to be doing what he did what he ultimately
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did in the first place the kim porter one is is atrocious i mean derrick chauvin
01:15:10.100
much more nebulous case the kim porter everyone acknowledged it was it was a bona fide legitimate
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mistake and anybody who has seen those taser guns could understand how they could get confused
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arguments that they're supposed to know which side of the body the taser's on versus the real
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admitted mistake pulled the trigger killed someone's life in a circumstance where she would
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have been entitled to use lethal force uh by all accounts in any event to jail and baldwin pulls the
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trigger by accident or pulls the trigger on purpose but doesn't think there's any live round in there
01:15:40.480
kill someone and and walks yeah politics ruins everything we shall see david thank you so much
01:15:48.380
thank you very much for having us it was great all right to be continued see you soon thanks for
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joining us today we're taking a couple of days off now for thanksgiving as i hope you are as well
01:15:58.500
and i hope you have a wonderful wonderful family holiday with your friends with your loved ones
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with your turkey and don't forget those who are in need this holiday season it's been very
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challenging i know for a lot of homeless shelters and other places that help families struggling
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during this time of year like with the inflationary prices and so on so if you have a despair consider
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giving to help your fellow human beings uh in the meantime all the best to you have a blessed
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thanksgiving i'll talk to you monday thanks for listening to the megan kelly show no bs no agenda