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Jury finds 'Rust' armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed guilty of involuntary manslaughter
(www.nbcnews.com)
this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2024
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This is dumb. Learn like airlines do; only prosecute for malicious intent. In all other cases, learn. Create procedures that make this situation impossible, and make certain that all major productions follow them.
Saying it's X or Y person's fault absolves any systemic issues. What training should an armorer have? Can we avoid a single point of failure that results in live ammo on set? Etc etc.
Edit: thank you Lemmy for positive votes. The Reddit threads are absolutely bloodthirsty in comparison. Good change in pace here.
Umm.. No. I am sorry but you are about 30 years out of date in believing this is a problem of not having enough proceedure. In the wake of the death of Brandon Lee the industry created a very comprehensive system of weapon checks and requiring all basic prop people to go through licencing and safe handling programs as part of getting their union ticket never mind armourers who require more extensive courses in handling a wide range of weaponry and experience in handling them.
The Rust case IS one where legitimate negligence of stringent industry standard was SO endemic that there is no leg to stand on. This is criminal negligence. Unionized workers were already leaving that production for safety concerns before the incident occured.
Here is a list of things that specifically went wrong in process for this specific incident to happen.
Even if the gun were loaded with blanks not submiting to all of this process would leave the door open to someone getting killed on a set. Even blanks can kill. At this point the criminal negligence pie is so big that the slices that get handed out are going to hurt. Before you start calling this case "dumb" understand the industry.
Yes, I know the list of things that kinda-sorta-shoulda happened. That's really my point, though. How can a production big enough to star Alec Baldwin and other union actors be able to run with non-union armory and such piss poor procedures?
We know that the whole safety procedures from top to bottom were rotten. So putting criminal blame on one person doesn't ring honest. How can we know the whole story if everyone is trying to cover their tracks to not land in prison? The people with meaningful authority on set failed, and I'm not convinced that this armorer truly had the authority to shut down production on safety grounds.
Procedural changes might be mandating that productions need armorers who are then protected from dismissal if things get dangerous, so they can stop productions etc. But nothing will change this time, since we have found someone to blame.
Here is what it is. The name of the star isn't important. Union people are not barred from being on non-union productions. I have had my union card over a decade and I have worked non union on occasion. What the difference is is how much of the liability is sunk by the Producers.
On a union show at any point there is a hotline I can call where a team from the Directors Guild, IATSE and the Teamsters can show up and stop production flat. That's on a union show. If it's a big studio there's a studio hotline that I can call who will check Producers because they protect their investments by enforcing standards.
If you have neither and you front the money and make the decisions at the top and have no regulatory body to which your employees can take their concerns to mitigate the responsibility to then you THE PRODUCER assume the liability for failure to provide a safe work environment. Alec Baldwin among other things is a Producer. He may have forgot that his job is an an employer and not an employee but the law fucking hasn't.
Yeah, if people are taking falls, Baldwin needs to take one. I am shocked that Halls got 6 mo suspended, too, as he was previously fired after another unexpected discharge among other complaints.
Non-union shows can be a bit of a nightmare for safety because Producers don't have the checks on power they should. Calling foul using government outsider jobsite regulators comes with potential costs of losing your job and blacklisting you with the other powerful people affiliated with production because Producers don't want to be bothered. Going out into the middle of nowhere where it's hard to get someone from OSHA to show up while something fuckity is actively happening is another layer of complexity.
Just like any other kind of work you don't get burned by liability and manslaughter charges until the bad thing actually happens. Union Film is one of the most regimented workplaces you're ever likely to encounter. Non-union projects though run the gamut. Anyone can fund them, they can be any size and they can be staffed with anything from people untrained in industry standard to folks with decades of experience. The wise thing for a Producer to do is to cover their ass by staffing with people who will enforce good safety standards but end of day if an aspirant first time Producer on a non-union show wants to hire all newbies there no immediate recourse. It's no different than if an employer at a regular job hires someone unqualified to do a dangerous job. It is the threat of it coming back to bite you in the ass that keeps you honest.
It's not like the airline industry. Shows pop up, they incorporate, they shoot then they completely dissolve and disappear within the space of as little as a couple of months and everyone goes back to shopping around for the next gig. Every non-union show is a tiny little bubble. If individuals don't face consequences things will never get better because there's no real cohesive industry after a certain point of the non-union world. Like if you work one of those things it's because you knew somebody who personally asked you to be on show as a personal favor or you're trying to upgrade your category or get started and show up on a word of mouth recommendation with promises of gaining experience and access to a group of people with money, wild aspirations and enough connections with techs or excitable talented amateurs to make something happen that may pay off further down the line.
The whole damn thing is rubber bands and handshakes.