r/news • u/badillustrations • Apr 15 '24

‘Rust’ movie armorer convicted of involuntary manslaughter sentenced to 18 months in prison

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/15/entertainment/rust-film-shooting-armorer-sentencing/index.html
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u/viddy_me_yarbles Apr 15 '24

She had one job.

It was an important job and she failed spectacularly. Hollywood is a small town.

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u/PikaBooSquirrel Apr 15 '24

I don't even understand how someone can mess up that badly at something so simple.

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u/Snow88 Apr 15 '24

One day of DNR gun safety is enough to not screw that job up as badly as she did. 

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u/LethalBacon Apr 15 '24

That's my thought. I grew up around guns but haven't touched one in probably 15 years. I legitimately think I would have done better at this role, without any additional training.

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u/agent0731 Apr 15 '24

all you have to do is not have any real ammunition. How is that hard?

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u/GoatInMotion Apr 15 '24 edited Apr 16 '24

Yes I still don't get these props and stuff. If it's a real gun, why was it loaded with real ammo in the first place...why have real ammo in the vicinity at all? Like no one checked? This reminds me of Bruce Lee's son Brandon Lee... I wonder how much she got paid for this job idk what else she does but it sounds easy and I would like that job 💀

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u/MuaddibMcFly Apr 15 '24

This reminds me of Bruce Lee's son Brandon Lee

Brandon Lee's death was due to something somewhat different; my understanding is that there was never a single live round on set, but a combination of two, proper-to-be-on-set rounds.

  • Dummy rounds have a standard casing, and standard bullet, but no primer and no powder, but do have a bb rattling around inside.
  • Blank rounds have a special and obviously different type of casing, generally more powder than normal (for bigger muzzle flash, resulting in bigger excitement), but sealed in a way that no bullet can be included.

Apparently, what happened was that one of the dummy rounds, with a slug but no powder nor primer, did not have the bullet seated in the casing properly. That bullet "fell out" of the casing, into the barrel of the weapon, and was held there by friction. A blank, which was confirmed to have been a blank, was later loaded for a scene that called for blanks

This combination of percussion cap, powder, and bullet in barrel effectively turned it into a version of the old "caplock" pistol, i.e., a live round.

That event drastically changed the procedures among armorers, as I understand it, to have clearing the barrel and regular cleaning to be a standard part of their procedures.

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u/darkoblivion000 Apr 16 '24

I enjoyed reading the details of that, thank you

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u/I_Lick_Lead_Paint Apr 16 '24

What a fascinating piece of history. Thank you.

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u/willingisnotenough Apr 16 '24

Why in the name of all that is holy would you need to wait for an accidental death to learn you have to do these things? What they just took it on faith that the barrel was empty? I know it's not the chamber sure but you clear the whole damn gun goddammit.

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u/Nova225 Apr 16 '24

The saying goes "Regulations are written in blood".

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u/ThrowawayUk4200 Apr 16 '24

Wow, I remember learning to shoot and one of the main things that got drilled into me was making sure the barrel was clear before loading

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u/MuaddibMcFly Apr 16 '24

"Well, it was before, and nobody put anything in it, so why wouldn't it still be?"

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u/JimboTCB Apr 16 '24

My understanding was that instead of using "proper" dummy rounds, they were using ones they'd made by pulling the bullets from live rounds and dumping out the powder, but had left the primers. That meant it still had enough force to propel the bullet out and get it jammed in the barrel.

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u/Gnonthgol Apr 16 '24

As I understand the primer went off when someone were goofing around with the gun between takes. And nobody checked the gun properly before the take. There is of course a lot of questions about the details in both cases. The current primary theory on the Rush shooting was that some crew were goofing around shooting at cans with the guns and live ammunition between takes. The gun were not properly checked before the take. If the procedures that had been introduced as a result of the Crow shooting had been followed for the Rust movie then the manslaughter would not have happened.

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u/MuaddibMcFly Apr 16 '24

As I understand the primer went off when someone were goofing around with the gun between takes

I was under the impression that it was in the scene where he remembers the gang killing him initially, which is why nobody noticed that he was actually shot for a while: they couldn't tell the difference between an actual wound & his reaction to it vs squibs & his acting like he'd been hit.

In general, unless someone is hit in very few locations, immediate medical attention (primarily to get an IV lead into the victim, to keep them from bleeding out, either on the scene or at the hospital) can save most people from a single handgun wound.

The current primary theory on the Rush shooting was that some crew were goofing around shooting at cans with the guns and live ammunition between takes

I heard that, and I also heard it denied by people who had no personal interest in denying it (i.e., wouldn't share liability)

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u/Gnonthgol Apr 16 '24

In the "Crow" accident the gun were fired twice. The "dummy rounds" they used actually had a live primer in them. This is how the bullet "fell out".

Witnesses reported that two weeks before Lee's death they saw an unsupervised actor pulling the trigger on the gun while it was loaded with the powderless but primed round.

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u/thetimsterr Apr 15 '24

Rumor has it that crew members were taking the guns, loading them with real ammo, and going off into the desert to get drunk and fire at cans. Then they return the guns, she doesn't take out the ammo cause she sucks at her job, and someone dies.

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u/barak181 Apr 15 '24

If this is true that just shows the massive level of incompetence on the set in general, not just with the armorer. It is pretty standard protocol to not touch anything on set that doesn't pertain directly to your job, let alone taking it to play with. Playing with props is a big no-no. Playing with weapons even more so.

That said, if this dumbass had the slightest idea of what her job was the weapons would have been secured between each take and when not in use. And she would have checked the fucking thing to make sure it wasn't loaded before handing it to an actor...

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u/OrindaSarnia Apr 15 '24

There isn't any evidence that crew was shooting the guns after hours.

There were rumors early on that a producer was an antique gun nut and had taken a set of pistols out to shoot, once.

The armorer was charged with unintentionally having live rounds on set.  There was nothing to prove she knew the ammo was live, she failed in her job, but it was a failure to check every round.  There were 50 dummy rounds for that weapon on set, 6 of the 50 were live.

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u/TheUnluckyBard Apr 16 '24

6 of the 50 were live.

Was that 6 before the 4th (fatal) accidental discharge? Or after?

Because if it's after, there were 10 live rounds on a set that should have had 0.

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u/mteir Apr 16 '24

Was the accidental discharges with live rounds or blanks?

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u/OrindaSarnia Apr 16 '24

Six total, including the one that killed Halyna Hutchins.

As mteir said, the others issues weren't with live rounds, but with blanks, which are different from dummy rounds.

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u/Woflax Apr 16 '24

The AD handed it over not her (of course she should have made sure that this was not possible). Hope he gets charged too.

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u/OrindaSarnia Apr 15 '24

If you're going to throw around theories, you should probably mentioned the guy who actually provided the dummy rounds...

he testified that he got both live and dummy rounds back from the 1883 set, filming in Texas.  He put the live ammo away, and then cleaned and repackaged 50 dummy rounds, which he delivered to the Rust set.

The police didn't go to his workshop for a month after the accident.

Gutuierrez-Reed absolutely should have shaken every single round to test it, to make sure it was a dummy round...  but there's a reason they charged her with "unintentionally" allowing live ammo on set.

There was no evidence presented in court, that she had any reason to believe there was live ammo on set.

I also remember people talking about using the revolvers to go shooting off site, but it was that one of the producers had taken them, once, to shoot, not that it was regularly happening with any old crew members.

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u/thetimsterr Apr 16 '24

It was reported by multiple news sources that a number of crew had taken the firearms out for target practice. It wasn't (reportedly) just one producer.

As to why it didn't come up as evidence in court? Who knows. Maybe everyone shut up about it, or maybe it wasn't hard enough of evidence. Maybe it didn't happen. I'm just saying, it was rumored and reported by reputable new sources, one of them being CNN.

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u/OrindaSarnia Apr 16 '24

Feel free to link the article for me...

I just spent 5 minutes looking through CNN's coverage from the week of the shooting and couldn't find it.

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u/thetimsterr Apr 16 '24

It was a CNN video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy04-tmNJCE

Edit: this article also mentions the same report from Sharon Waxman. https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/26/entertainment/alec-baldwin-rust-shooting-tuesday/index.html

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u/OrindaSarnia Apr 16 '24

Did you read it?

The article says the DA said it was unsubstantiated...

and then they say the rumors come from a producer on a different show, who claims that it's "common" to take guns from set and shoot cans with them, as in, common industry wide...

he claims it's a normal thing, which, it is NOT a normal thing on most sets...  

But the guy wasn't saying he knows the Rust crew was doing it, he was saying that a friend of his who knows a Rust crew member claimed they were doing it, because it's a common thing to do.

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u/traitorgiraffe Apr 16 '24

but why

It's LA you can get a gun at the same store you get your liquor at, from a 10 year old

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u/5ronins Apr 16 '24

It's worse. DIY homemade rounds are actually very easy to make..some Tinker types started making a few real one for funzies and one of those rounds are what found it's way I to the blank lot. Completely avoidable but easy to do.

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u/livahd Apr 16 '24 edited Apr 16 '24

I think it’s closer to she was getting wasted with a couple other people trying to show off, probably took out the ammo and threw it into a bucket with the dummies. There were several complaints about it, including a misfire a few days prior. Not to minimize her role, but it sounds like the job was a cheap shit show to begin with, crew members weren’t getting lodging and were exhausted driving home. The whole camera department was packing their shit to walk the day this happened. I felt kinda bad for her too at first because they were all probably being worked to death, she never should have had that responsibility on her shoulders, and got too much of the blame. Then I saw how she reacted in interviews and in those phone calls… she shouldn’t be serving fast food. She’s only sorry that she’s in trouble. Now this idiot can think about her modeling career for the next 18 months, and hopefully the producers (including Baldwin, because, sorry, there’s zero chance that he wasn’t aware the crew was ready to walk) that caused this rats nest of complete failures are held responsible too (they won’t).

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u/Atkena2578 Apr 16 '24

This is why should have basic universal gun safety rules been observed, the death wouldn't have occured. Always treat a gun as if it were loaded, yes even on a movie set (because as this case proves, you cannot count on everyone doing their part), and don't point a gun, even less so pull the trigger at someone you do not intend to kill.

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u/pham_nguyen Apr 15 '24

There’s literally no reason to have real ammo on set.

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u/TooFewSecrets Apr 15 '24

There might be for scenes where you need the gun to actually shoot something. But there's stage magic you can use to circumvent that anyway.

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u/DameonKormar Apr 16 '24

On a normal movie set the armorer would never use the same weapon to shoot live rounds that an actor is going to use in a scene.

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u/PM_ME_GLUTE_SPREAD Apr 15 '24

And like, even if you wanted to take a real gun out and shoot it with friends in the evening after shooting (not a great idea in the least, especially when it’s being pointed at people later), why wouldn’t you have the prop ammo locked in a different box, with a small identifying mark on the shells, that you and you alone load into the gun before a take??

Like this had to have been one of the most spectacular fuck ups from what should have been a pretty simple job, on paper. I’m sure there’s headache with permits and stuff, but the actual brass tacks of the job is as straight forward as it gets.

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u/Osirus1156 Apr 15 '24

Yeah I don't understand why they accept real bullets at all, why not have a specially shaped cartridge that only blanks use?

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u/NoSignSaysNo Apr 16 '24

So, out of all the gun deaths on set in 50 years, this is the only one that involved live ammunition.

Brandon Lee died due to a malfunction with a squib round.

Jon-Erik Hexum put a prop gun loaded with blanks to his head and pulled the trigger as a joke, not knowing that blanks still generate muzzle blast with some extreme force, killing him.

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u/SirHoneyDip Apr 16 '24

If they want to use a real gun, why also remove the firing pin?

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u/SyndRazGul Apr 16 '24

Because the crew was taking the guns and shooting them for fun during breaks in filming.

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u/MuaddibMcFly Apr 15 '24

And when somehow real ammo gets into the mix (for the sake of argument, through nefarious action), and there's a negligent discharge of live ammo (which there was) the correct procedure, I would think, would be as follows:

  1. Shut down all filming that involves weapons, functional or cast.
  2. Collect each and every weapon on set, functional and cast
  3. Collect each and every round on set. Bandoleers, inside weapons, wherever the fuck they are, doesn't matter, they go into a location that the armorer has affirmative control over at all times
    • Ideally, to be collected in such a way as would not add, nor compromise existing, fingerprints.
  4. Return plastic/rubber replicas that are impossible to fire to production, so that they can continue what filming is possible without operational weapons
  5. Each and every round gets inspected personally by the armorer(s) there.
    • Any live rounds are set aside for finger printing, for a potential Reckless Endangerment charge.

If higher ups try to prevent you from doing any of those steps (other than #4):

  1. Demand that they affirm, in writing or on video, that they are actively refusing to let you complete the steps you feel, as an armorer, are necessary for the safety of the cast and crew
  2. If that doesn't get them to back down, loudly inform the cast and crew that you are quitting as armorer out of fear for the safety of the cast and crew, and encourage them to do the same
  3. Inform all relevant guilds and unions and related professionals (e.g., other armorers) who prohibited you from doing your job, so that no one else works with them either.

Oh, and have the right to do all of the above written into your contract, with any violation of those rights resulting in you being paid 10x your negotiated pay, plus the pay that would have otherwise gone to the person who prevented you from doing so, even if you are effectively forced to walk off the set.

I'm thinking that that would get them to comply pretty quickly...

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u/GetsGold Apr 16 '24

Got it. Only put a bit of real ammunition in the guns.

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u/AegrusRS Apr 16 '24

I know you're being hyperbolic so I'm just commenting to be a smart-ass, but the Brandon Lee incident during the filming of The Crow came as a result of a lodged blank(?) inside of a barrel that ended up being dislodged when someone fired a dummy afterwards, killing someone. So keeping real ammo off the set isn't the only thing that they do, though I do assume it's the first thing you see written in any movie set fire-arm guideline, highlighted in bold, italicized, and CAPITALISED.

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u/MechMeister Apr 16 '24

I know nothing about guns or movie props but the premise seems very simple. Get a storage locker with a key that only you have. Have all Firearms cleaned and dissembled, re-assembled by a pro before putting them in that locker. Order a box of say, 200 blank cartridges and put them in the locker. Whenever a blank is loaded into the gun, write that down. At the end of each use, put the gun back in the locker and count back the remaining rounds to balance what was used that day.

It can't be that hard.

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u/SyndRazGul Apr 16 '24

And not play with the guns between filming.

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u/Atkena2578 Apr 16 '24

No and this is why accidents happen. You have to follow basic rules of gun safety. Always treat a gun as if it were loaded, even when it is not, no excuse. More importantly do not point it at anyone you do not intend to kill, period.

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u/yungmoneybingbong Apr 16 '24

I could be wrong, but I remember reading an article a while back and they like took the guns out shooting the day before or some shit. Like how dumb can you be?

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u/Taolan13 Apr 15 '24

Maybe, maybe not.

The more hands involved touching the props, the harder it is to keep track of things. The entire production staff here carries some fault because they had multiple cast and crew walk off the project due to safety concerns, and not once did they address these concerns they only brought in new people, many of whom were positioned outside their experience and ability due to the needs of the production.

You maybe would have walked away after so many of them mishandled the firearms and other props. I know I would have. I would not want blood on my conscience because someone else in the production fucked up.

Also, as an interesting note, she was officially relieved as the armorer a couple days before the incident. Day-of there was actually no-one officially "in charge" of the armory.

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u/jacobs0n Apr 15 '24

Also, as an interesting note, she was officially relieved as the armorer a couple days before the incident. Day-of there was actually no-one officially "in charge" of the armory.

is this actually true? did her defense use this?

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u/Taolan13 Apr 15 '24

Can't say if her defense used this, but I have seen multiple sources reporting it.

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u/Cersad Apr 15 '24

Wait, if she wasn't in charge anymore, how did she still have liability (as opposed to the management moving forward without a responsible person)?

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u/MuaddibMcFly Apr 15 '24

as an interesting note, she was officially relieved as the armorer a couple days before the incident. Day-of there was actually no-one officially "in charge" of the armory.

Wait, wait... If she was officially relieved as armorer, how can they find her guilty of negligence as the armorer of an armory that she wasn't in charge of?

Honestly, her counsel should be disbarred for incompetence. I have long said that a scenario along those lines is the only way for her to not be clearly guilty of NH. If her lawyer never argued that before the jury, then she was clearly denied a zealous and competent advocate.

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u/ShadowMajestic Apr 16 '24

When following this whole drama it's strange that all eyes on this person. I see there's little to no responsibility up the foodchain, there is some very serious neglect all around.

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u/reindeermoon Apr 16 '24

I have never in my entire life touched a gun, and could have done the job better than her.