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Thursday, January 19, 2023
New Mexico D.A. to Announce Decision on 'Rust' Charges Thursday
Variety: A New Mexico prosecutor will announce a decision Thursday as to whether she will file charges against Alec Baldwin and others in the fatal shooting on the set of “Rust” in 2021.
The fact that this case is still ongoing should say something about how the theatre and film industry are becoming more aware of the dangers of live weapons. It is still such a shame that it caused many different people throughout the years to die from these accidents to create real safety change. I am interested to see what the criminal charge decision will be and who will be held accountable for this terrible accident. I hope that there will be some significant change that happens because of this accident, otherwise this accident will be truly horrific. As a future production or stage manager I am hopeful that accidents like these will happen less as often. I am continually surprised that the regulations for weapons on a stage or film are less regulated than they should be. I hope this gets solved and that there are consequences for the actions that led to this terrible accident and the death of an artist.
It is impossible to believe that there was live ammo on set. I want to know where this situation went wrong in the chain of events because it feels like every step. One would assume that real ammo would not make it to the set and that the armor would have known that it was wrong to put it into the gun. Also that the actor would not be firing it in the direction of people, even if they thought it wouldn't fire. I'm hoping that there was no malicious intent; however, I worry that the investigation may come up to show that there was an intended target for the bullets. If this is not the case, I believe that the actor should not be held responsible, but the production as a whole should. Either way, it is horrible to hear that such a thing can and still does happen in our industry. I hope this is taken as a sign and the standards change to ensure no actual gunshots are ever fired again.
I remember writing comments about this when it first happened. Everyone was trying to figure out what exactly happened and who to place the blame on. Sometimes it felt like people had forgotten that at its core this was a tragedy where a very bright life was taken from us. The criminal justice system is incredibly slow. It claims that we have the right to a speedy trial but it takes months and months to gather everything necessary in a case like this. It seems like, at the end of the day, most of the charges being brought forward, in this case, are performative– no one is actually going to prison. It is a manslaughter case in which the charges send a message that something like this will never happen again. Personally, I think that we have the technology to say goodbye to guns on set altogether. If we can turn people into aliens I bet we could make a pretty good-looking gun.
3 comments:
The fact that this case is still ongoing should say something about how the theatre and film industry are becoming more aware of the dangers of live weapons. It is still such a shame that it caused many different people throughout the years to die from these accidents to create real safety change. I am interested to see what the criminal charge decision will be and who will be held accountable for this terrible accident. I hope that there will be some significant change that happens because of this accident, otherwise this accident will be truly horrific. As a future production or stage manager I am hopeful that accidents like these will happen less as often. I am continually surprised that the regulations for weapons on a stage or film are less regulated than they should be. I hope this gets solved and that there are consequences for the actions that led to this terrible accident and the death of an artist.
It is impossible to believe that there was live ammo on set. I want to know where this situation went wrong in the chain of events because it feels like every step. One would assume that real ammo would not make it to the set and that the armor would have known that it was wrong to put it into the gun. Also that the actor would not be firing it in the direction of people, even if they thought it wouldn't fire. I'm hoping that there was no malicious intent; however, I worry that the investigation may come up to show that there was an intended target for the bullets. If this is not the case, I believe that the actor should not be held responsible, but the production as a whole should. Either way, it is horrible to hear that such a thing can and still does happen in our industry. I hope this is taken as a sign and the standards change to ensure no actual gunshots are ever fired again.
I remember writing comments about this when it first happened. Everyone was trying to figure out what exactly happened and who to place the blame on. Sometimes it felt like people had forgotten that at its core this was a tragedy where a very bright life was taken from us. The criminal justice system is incredibly slow. It claims that we have the right to a speedy trial but it takes months and months to gather everything necessary in a case like this. It seems like, at the end of the day, most of the charges being brought forward, in this case, are performative– no one is actually going to prison. It is a manslaughter case in which the charges send a message that something like this will never happen again. Personally, I think that we have the technology to say goodbye to guns on set altogether. If we can turn people into aliens I bet we could make a pretty good-looking gun.
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