Article is paywalled so not able to read it. But do we know if Mr. Baldwin was indicted as an Actor or a
Producer.
As stated earlier in the thread they are 2 things that can mean 2 very different things.
Though it's also VERY possible that they aren't taking any of that into account and just treating it as a single entity.
There's no public knowledge of this time about what was considered in the indictment procedure and to my knowledge, the actual charging documents haven't yet been filed. In all likelihood, the case will be built around both. Baldwin, the actor, firing the gun, and Baldwin, the
producer, who stood to benefit financially from a low-budget operation with lax
safety protocols. They will not likely distinguish one from the other -- those nuances will be up to the defense to argue.
The prosecution may have an uphill battle here though. The firearm was broken during FBI analysis and the evidence now contains replacement parts. If you're the defense attorneys, you're going to argue that this evidence has been tampered with and should be deemed inadmissible -- or at the very least, an expert witness would argue that no conclusions can be reached about the condition of the firearm as any forensics analysis would be hindered by the replacement parts.
I think there's still an open question about the source of the ammunition box Gutierrez-Reed is alleged to have brought on set from a third-party and whether it contained live rounds or not.
The
OSHA report alludes to Baldwin being a
producer, but primarily for the purposes of funding the project and approving script changes. It goes further to identify Ryan Smith and Gabrielle
Pickle as the producers overseeing the the production with authority to manage hire/manage/discipline employees, and recommended citation of Rust Movie Productions, LLC.
Though in the company's response, they seem to
throw Gutierrez-Reed under the bus saying that they delegated firearm
safety to industry experts and deny responsibility for managing those duties -- however, the text messages and emails between the two entities seem to make it pretty
clear they were responsible for managing her and splitting her time between being the armorer and working on
props. What seems to be missing is the connecting of any dots between Baldwin, the
producer, and him having managerial authority on set.
At this
point, it seems unlikely any new, credible information will come to light -- and the information that is out there paints a very muddy picture that seems to make it hard to tie this to Baldwin while ignoring other producers. If Baldwin, the
producer, is found liable, seems there should be more dominos to fall than just Gutierrez-Reed and David
Hall.
There have also been
a few videos released from the set showing that, at the very least, Baldwin himself appeared to be interested in the
safety of the crew.
In one video, telling a cameraman how to shoot a scene so the cameraman walking backwards doesn't break his ankle. In another video, rearranging the crew to keep them out of the
line of his shot. Not necessarily representative of anything over the course of multiple days of filming on set, but seems like a narrative that Baldwin was blindly ignorant of
safety protocols would be harder to make.
apnews.com
variety.com
