Oh I’m sure he’s going to cut a fat check or two. I doubt and real criminal charges come from this though.
that, and you need A LOT of money to go toe-to-toe with him if you want it to go to trial. But more than 90% of civil cases never make it there. It's too expensive, and Baldwin has the money to drag them out if he wanted to. He could settle, but that would likely mean, in addition to cutting a large check, also admitting some level of culpability. And if he doesn't want to? That's why some people and companies -- notoriously, trump and wal mart -- have formal or informal policies not to settle. They just keep it going forever with their lawyers filing motions and what not, a war of attrition where the wealthy always win and the poor are SOL. Fair? Nope. But that's the legal system for ya.
Speaking as a mechanic... It's the mechanic. Or the shop he works for. Whoever has the best lawyers, and is the smoothest talker. I have seen this exact scenario play out.* Baldwin won't see a bit of punishment for this. I'd really like for this to be his screwup, but in my opinion, it isn't. He won't see any penalties, but someone else will be thrown under the bus, probably that "armorer," who looks very similar to a girl I dated (briefly) in the late '00s. *Not my work. I'm really paranoid after seeing bad things happen. Tl; dr: Baldwin is a celebrity, thus, he's too good for jail time. Prove me wrong. PROVE. ME. WRONG.
Welp going to have to listen to that one. Lesson of the day? Dont date ex-cons, some aren't reformed when they get out. Story ive told before but we had some neighbor kids growing up few years older than us, boy and girl. Girl became an assistant DA and started dating a convict that was on cleaning duty at the justice center she worked at. He got out, she ended up trying to break things off. Showed up to her house with a hatchet and her brother happened to be there and intervened and got forty whacks. Didnt end up dying but was brain damaged and had to relearn how to walk. Con was sent back to prison. Certainly a huge "what the fuck was she thinking in the first place" vibe. Her guilt has to be crazy. The movie studio and/or Baldwin will be cutting checks. Family certainly isnt going to go after a purple haired 22 year old that is probably penniless to begin with. Baldwin personally might have to pay out but I think it'll come down to public sentiment. The entertainment industry is one of the easier targets for folding on the whims of of public perception and outrage. If he fights it and comes off callous and uncaring and the public turns on him? He'll be thrown under the bus. If he keeps the innocent victim perception going he might not. It also comes down to negligence of the whole production which he is a producer on.
This will be one big thing covered by insurance. It will likely get settled privately, because that will be the most lucrative thing for all involved and there's no doubt that the victim was innocent. I think it's entirely wrong to focus on Baldwin, the actor, as if this was his fault. It would solve absolutely nothing, as this incident points to a systemic failure within the industry that needs to be addressed. If it had been an unknown bit actor who was in the background of a scene and his gun went off, it would get 1/10th the coverage this is getting. This whole thing reminds me of a tragedy that happened in the 90s (I think?) with an Italian Air flight. Plane takes off and early on all the sensors light up. Like, every single one of them. Pilots were getting low speed warnings, high speed warnings, altitude warnings, etc. All of them conflicting. It was nighttime and cloudy, so there was no horizon to orient WTF was happening. The plane crashed, killing all on board. The Italians did an investigation and showed that, since the "ground proximity" warning was alerting, the pilots should have listened (remember...every single other warning was also chirping at the same time). The cause was found to be that a ground crew person had taped over the exterior computer sensors (the correct procedure for when the plane was being washed) and forgot to remove them (an error). They prosecuted the crewman and considered the problem solved. This, of course, missed the point completely and in no way ensured it would never happen again. What was actually going on was a culture of lax safety, a hierarchical structure that discouraged subordinates from speaking up and over-worked/under-trained staff that had too much to do in sensitive areas. I can see that very thing happening on this set, and probably within the industry.
I don't think anyone here who is criticizing Baldwin is claiming that personal accountability is the only solution. Clearly there was a systemic failure at multiple levels. On the other hand, people who are handling firearms on set should also have some personal accountability for them. If you need to handle a gun, you need to know how to check it for safety. If you need to drive a car fast, you need to know how to do it safely. If you need to jump out of an airplane, you need to know how to do it safely. For cars and airplanes, people go through training. For a gun, people just trust the person who handed it to them. The whole situation is fucked on every level, but I think it's okay to acknowledge that and also say that the person pointing the gun and pulling the trigger on a gun that was supposed to be empty, should have verified its state before doing so.
I look at it this way; If John Force straps into his 10,0000+hp funny car, makes a pass and the tire pressure was incorrect resulting in a blown tire which sends the rubber carcass into the stands killing a spectator, is that on him? Shouldn't he have checked the tire pressure to ensure the car was safe to drive? That's common car safety, right? I don't feel that'd be on Force as he has a team of professionals that check all that for him. His job is to focus on driving the car and winning the race. Same thing with Baldwin. He had a team of professionals that said the gun was clear. His job was to act and capture the scene. He's not plinking targets is his backyard, asking to borrow his buddy's gun who told him it was empty, he doesn't check it and accidently shoots someone.
Some fun news from back home in Idaho. A dude stole a D8 Cat and led police on a low speed chase before stopping. His reason for stealing the Cat? “He was concerned that the night before he had cut down a couple of trees near a railroad track and had risen up the ‘Chinese Aztec Army’. And they had apparently made him a king. And at some point he believed that they were conspiring to kill him. And he needed a code to send them back. And the code was in that machine, the bulldozer, to send them back,” I'll give him an A+ for originality.
It's just the parent company name change... like Google's Alphabet... all the apps are going to stay named/branded the same.
As for his personal accountability I’d just be curious was rules govern the situation on set. Does the end actor have to check the weapon personally under the rules? If so there would have to be training for them to even recognize the differences. If that is the situation then yeah he holds culpability in my mind. He’s been in films long enough he’s certainly had safety training. If the rules say the armorer has final say when handing the gun off then god it’d be a super shitty situation to live with.
The Metaverse is all the rage these days... it's a major focus of my company. Facebook wants to pivot to be the main mover in that space.