I know Hannah was inexperienced. Most people would bend over backwards to be very thorough and double check every detail.
I was in my first professional job. Working beside programmers with 10 years experience was intimidating. I busted my butt for the first couple years learning from them and getting experience.
I’m surprised reports say Hannah was sloppy and disorganized. She had worked with her father (Thell Reed) and knew what to do. But,let’s see what witnesses say during testimony.
Thell Reed has 46 crew credits as armorer or gun coach on imdb. Hannah should have learned something from him.
If she knew what to do than she didn’t do it. Learning a profession from a parent is no guarantee of good results. Her father may have been too lenient with her, or made her over confident, or he could have done a great job of training her but on her own she didn’t follow through.
I think she has nothing of value to tell the prosecution either since she hasn’t cut a deal with them. The state wants a conviction and she’s their best bet.
But surely nothing else that was going on excuses the presence of live rounds on set, and I don’t see how she is not primarily culpable in that. Either she brought live rounds on set herself or she knew they were there. Unless what I’ve read is inaccurate, that’s a big safety taboo. It surely makes sense that this would be an absolute inviolable safety rule in the special environment of a set where pointing a gun at someone is sometimes a required part of the simulation. Perhaps being bullied by more senior people into tolerating poor practices because she’s young and inexperienced could reduce her culpability in some respects, but I don’t see how it excuses this. Unless someone else brought live rounds on set and mixed them in without her knowledge, which I don’t think anyone has suggested, that’s 100% on her.
Maybe. Frankly the producers on this movie don’t inspire confidence that they would actually check.
And given that this was only her second or third movie as an armorer I think there is a good chance she couldn’t have afforded it/wouldn’t have gotten it unless forced to by the producers.
But if she had insurance I would expect that it would be no more than $1 million and this would be an inadequate settlement for the death–so the insurance company and victim’s husband would have simply settled for the full amount–because the insurance company would thus avoid paying expensive legal fees to defend the case.
A big question I have is where did the bullets actually come from and how did they get on the set. So if you are following the trial please tell us.
The defense (on cross examination) went through crime scene photos of the supplier. The rooms were very disorganized with crates and boxes scattered on shelves and on the floor. The defense seemed to focus on the mess. Implying the ammunition error started there. But it’s not absolute proof.
They found one round that didn’t rattle. FBI checked it and it had bb’s inside. They were stuck and didn’t rattle. Imho Hannah should have discarded any rounds that didn’t pass the rattle test.
Am I misremembering? From way back just after this happened, I thought some witnesses said that a group was sitting around in the evening messing around taking pot shots with live rounds. That’s not consistent with live rounds getting on set accidentally from an earlier mixup at the supplier.
That’s what we were hearing the first week or two after the accident–but after that those comments seemed to disappear.
Right now it seems most plausible that the ammunition supplier was sloppily organized and sent live rounds by mistake. Since the movie had not ordered any live rounds Hannah assumed they were blanks and did not bother to check. Since the movie had not ordered any live rounds and since Hannah was supposed to check assistant director Dave Hall saw no reason to re-check the gun. Since the movie had not ordered any live rounds and Hannah and Dave Hall had both presumably checked the gun Alec Baldwin knew the gun was safe and simply pulled the trigger.
This kind of situation where multiple people are supposed to check something and consequently sign off their approval but fail to do those checks because they assume a previous signer did the checks is fairly common. Anyone remember reading about the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Walkway collapse where 114 people died:
Several people had signed off on a design changed which dramatically weakened the walkway–and should never have been done.
It seems like the ammo supplier should share blame and charges. But only Hannah and Baldwin have been charged.
It seems like the rule that no live ammo is allowed on set leads to complacency. A prop person could carefully shake and load 200 rounds and every one rattles. By 201 they aren’t listening as closely for the rattle. By 401 they are only spot checking a few from each newly opened box.
It doesn’t excuse what happened. I do understand how a young woman juggling 2 busy assignments on set could make a mistake.
It takes maturity and discipline to check and then double check your work. Every single day.
…who said she was in a union? I thought the whole thing was she got the job because none of the more reputable (unionized) armorers were willing to work under the conditions this largely non-union production had in place. Remember: when the union camera crew packed up an left, citing safety among other issues, they didn’t stop filming. In fact, they were back to filming the very next day with a non-union crew, which is when the shooting happened IIRC.
The rattle test is absolutely insane, IMHO. One would think all the dummy rounds should have holes in them. That was true of the ones we used for training in the Navy.
But maybe someone will come in and explain to me again why film sets are totally different?
Dummy rounds are drilled with holes. Dummy rounds are just props in a revolver. So the camera shot looks right.
Blanks with powder in them have bb’s that rattle. I don’t know why they aren’t marked on the outside with a paint pen. I guess they worry that paint can rub off.
The primary responsibility to be very thorough in checking every round surely lies with the armorer. This seems fundamental, it’s not something you need years of experience to know. And it surely can be done carefully in plenty of time before coming on set, it has nothing to do with subsequent poor procedures on set where she may have been unassertive and bullied by more senior people.
But what are we hearing, did the supplier do something so egregious as label live rounds to look exactly like dummy rounds and mix them in a box labeled dummies?
There were supposed to be dummy rounds—not blanks—in the gun, right? And by the way, a blank round looks even less like a real round, because it will have a crimped end instead of a bullet.
The more interesting witnesses should testify next week. Today was establishing basic evidence like the police photos, boxes of ammo on the set, and Hannah’s cell phone data examination.
The crime scene tech found a couple live rounds in the cartridge belts of actor’s costumes. That’s pretty bad because it indicates Hannah made the same mistake with ammo several times.
No, blanks with powder in them do not rattle. They are filled with powder, and the end is crimped. You can’t mistake them for reall bullets.
DUMMY bullets look like real bullets, and in fact are real bullets with the powder removed and with inert primers. Because they are indistinguishable from real bullets, they are drilled on the side and they are filled with BBs.
Any cartridge that looks like a normal bullet/cartridge must be checked for the drilled hole and shaken to hear the BBs, which tells you that there is no powder inside. You do both in case some idiot drilled a hole in the side of a real cartridge.
Terminology note: The bullet is the lead bit on top of the cartridge. The cartridge is the brass that holds the bullet, primer, and powder. A blank cartridge has no bullet.
Blanks are dangerous, btw. A gun with blanks in it should be treated as a live weapon (well, so should any gun at any time). But firing a blank indoors can damage hearing, and if fired at you close enough can injure or kill you. I had this demonstrated to me by an old boyfriend of my mother’s, who blew a hole through a piece of 1/4" plywood with a blank in a revolver from close range. But blanks are easy to spot.
For the hyper-technical definition, isn’t what you are defining here a cartridge case? While cartridge would be synonymous with round, a unit of ammunition including the cartridge case that holds everything and the contents.
(Not trying to be clever and catch you out, I’m really not a gun expert, just seeking clarification.)
Yeah, you’re right. And it’s not a nitpick, it’s an important distinction. I was being sloppy. These are technical terms you generally don’t hear casually from shooters. They mostly call the cartridge case ‘brass’ as in ‘Collect your brass after shooting’, or “I got a new bullet mold, but I am a little short on brass.” But cartridge and cartridge case are used when talking more formally.
But yeah, the cartridge is everything. The cartridge case is the brass that holds the bullet, powder and primer.
