Alec Baldwin fatally shoots woman with prop gun on movie set

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BBC said:
A woman has died and a man has been injured after actor Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun on a New Mexico film set.

Police in the US state said Mr Baldwin discharged the weapon during filming for the 19th Century western Rust.

The woman was taken to hospital but died of her injuries. The man, the film's director, was receiving emergency care.

Detectives are investigating the incident at Bonanza Creek Ranch, a popular filming location.
The woman has been named as 42-year-old Halyna Hutchins, who was working as director of photography. The man being treated is Joel Souza, 48, the film's director.

Police said their investigation remains open and active, and no charges have yet been filed in relation to the incident.

Ms Hutchins was a graduate of the American Film Institute and had been named a "rising star" by American Cinematographer magazine in 2019.

In a statement to Variety magazine, the International Cinematographer's Guild said Ms Hutchins' death was "devastating news" and "a terrible loss".

Police said sheriff's deputies were dispatched to Bonanza Creek Ranch at around 13:50pm MST (19:30 GMT) after receiving an emergency call about a shooting on set.

Mr Baldwin, 68, is a co-producer of the film and plays its namesake, an outlaw named Rust, whose 13-year-old grandson is convicted of an accidental murder.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-59005500
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Ignoring the potential irony of the plot... how can you kill someone with a prop gun? I'm assuming a prop gun is fake and simply fires blanks or potentially something which makes the muzzle flash, but perhaps I'm wrong.

Anyone with more knowledge of film prop firearms care to enlighten me?

Also, how did he shoot the directors? I suppose if he's aiming towards camera it is understandable the aim would be towards them, but surely they wouldn't be that close to the discharge.

If the prop gun is legitimate, then would there be potential for related charges of accidental death due to negligence?
 
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Brandon Lee suffered a similar fate when filming The Crow, in that case somebody forgot to remove the primers from the dummy rounds. Depending on the circumstances, blanks/dummy rounds can be just as deadly as an actual bullet. I can still remember the demonstration given by our Staff Sergeant in Army Cadets with a blank round and a bag of cow's blood before handing us a shedload of blanks and sending us off into the woods for war games.
 
Malevolence said:
Brandon Lee suffered a similar fate when filming The Crow, in that case somebody forgot to remove the primers from the dummy rounds.
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Oh mad, I always thought someone swapped out the guns or maybe I've been fooled by a conspiracy theory my whole life.

Malevolence said:
Depending on the circumstances, blanks/dummy rounds can be just as deadly as an actual bullet.
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Because of the explosion or is there also something physical which ejects like a projectile?
 
The burning gas jet and particles from a blank will blow a hole through your skin and flesh without a bullet.

This dissipates with distance so you need to be really close, ideally contacting, to seriously wound someone with it.
 
Malevolence said:
Brandon Lee suffered a similar fate when filming The Crow, in that case somebody forgot to remove the primers from the dummy rounds. Depending on the circumstances, blanks/dummy rounds can be just as deadly as an actual bullet. I can still remember the demonstration given by our Staff Sergeant in Army Cadets with a blank round and a bag of cow's blood before handing us a shedload of blanks and sending us off into the woods for war games.
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We had similar when in army cadets and a bucket of water. I thought the blanks split in half or something.
 
Le Clandestin Brun said:
Ignoring the potential irony of the plot... how can you kill someone with a prop gun? I'm assuming a prop gun is fake and simply fires blanks or potentially something which makes the muzzle flash, but perhaps I'm wrong.

Anyone with more knowledge of film prop firearms care to enlighten me?

Also, how did he shoot the directors? I suppose if he's aiming towards camera it is understandable the aim would be towards them, but surely they wouldn't be that close to the discharge.

If the prop gun is legitimate, then would there be potential for related charges of accidental death due to negligence?
Click to expand...

In this film the director is also a (somewhat careless) actor in it.
 
I can already imagine lawyers franctically trying to get in touch with her family about a potential civil lawsuit. I imagine everyone invovled in on-set production would have a NDA about rare occurences such as these or would that stricly be for stunt doubles etc?
 
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