FRIDAY NIGHT SPECIAL: MOVIE SUPERSTAR ALEC BALDWIN CRASH - BLAMES MYSTERY DUMP TRUCK

Summary

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Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

Episode: FRIDAY NIGHT SPECIAL: MOVIE SUPERSTAR ALEC BALDWIN CRASH - BLAMES MYSTERY DUMP TRUCK
Date: October 25, 2025

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Overview

In this Friday Night Special, Nancy Grace examines two headline-making incidents involving Alec Baldwin: his recent car crash in the Hamptons and the infamous fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of "Rust." The episode explores themes of personal responsibility, systemic failure in film set safety, industry protocols, and Baldwin’s public narrative around both incidents. Nancy, with her panel of legal, forensic, and investigative experts, interrogates Baldwin's tendencies to deflect blame, the chaotic Rust set, and broader safety failings in Hollywood.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Alec Baldwin Car Crash – Fact vs. Fiction

(02:32–06:40, 40:53–42:26)

• Incident Summary: Alec Baldwin, while driving his wife’s SUV in the Hamptons, crashes into a tree. He claims a National Waste Services dump truck forced him off the road.

• Contradictory Evidence: Newly surfaced dashcam footage from inside the dump truck shows it exited the intersection without incident and was nowhere near Baldwin’s SUV when it crashed.

  • Nancy’s Take: “Based on that video, it seems that the dump truck had nothing to do with Baldwin’s SUV slamming into a tree.” (03:33)
  • Pattern of Blame: Nancy compares Baldwin’s response with his statements after the Rust shooting, highlighting his tendency to externalize blame.

• No Legal Charges: Police found no wrongdoing in the crash; no injuries occurred.

• Nancy’s Critique: She emphasizes simple accountability:

  • “Why blame the gun and lie? Why blame ... the driver of a dump truck? Just ... own up to it, man. Nobody’s hurt, nobody’s dead, nobody’s dismembered. Just why lie?” (17:51)

Notable Quote

“He actually managed to keep his piehole shut. What happened the day of the crash in the Hamptons, we may never know ... the dump truck or trash truck had nothing to do with Baldwin veering off the side of the road.”
— Nancy Grace (41:05)

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2. The Rust Shooting – Systemic Failure & Baldwin’s Account

(06:40–15:37, 17:45–39:00, 40:47–51:15)

Incident Recap

• Timeline: On the set of "Rust," Baldwin fatally shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza with a live round from a “prop” gun.
• Prop Gun or Real Gun?: Panelists clarify 'prop gun' on Rust was actually a functional firearm used as a prop.

Chain of Custody & Safety Protocols

• Paul Zeich (Former Police Commander, Actor, Firearms Expert):

  • Describes proper chain of custody, handling, and strict controls from armorers on professional film sets. Emphasizes the use of true prop guns—incapable of firing live ammunition—as an industry imperative (20:10–21:27).

• Dominic Romano (Entertainment Lawyer):

  • Points out established protocols were “seriously, grossly neglected,” referencing the similar death of Brandon Lee on the set of "The Crow" (24:03–27:25).

Working Conditions & Crew Complaints

• Reports of long hours, unsafe hotel accommodations, prior accidental discharges, and crew walkouts on Rust.
• “Hollywood is very much a union business, but the producers hired non-union people to replace them.”
  — Alexis Tereschuk (47:16)
• Assistant director Dave Halls—who handed Baldwin the gun and called it a “cold gun”—had a prior history of safety complaints and firing from other film projects.

Distinguishing Blanks from Live Rounds

• Paul Zeich: “A blank is a shell casing with gunpowder in it with no bullet. A bullet ... is ... the same exact thing with more gunpowder and a live bullet ... made to travel through the barrel and exit the weapon.” (31:46)
• Panel Consensus: Any trained professional should easily distinguish the difference. Allowing confusion represents gross negligence.

Discussion: Accident or Gross Negligence?

• Nancy challenges “accident” framing, comparing it to DUI cases:
  • “So is it an accident? Is it gross negligence?” (11:43)
• Consensus is that a string of systemic failures, not a fluke, produced the fatal result.

Notable Quotes

“No one should ever be killed by a gun on a film set, period. Those are the words of Brandon Lee's sister.”
— Dominic Romano (24:03)

“If this guy, if it’s correct, the AD had a previous incident where somebody was shot on a set, even if it was a minor injury, then you should have seen—either knew or should have known. Would you agree?”
— Nancy Grace (34:13)

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3. Psychological and Cultural Factors on Set

(44:33–46:47)

• Suspension of Disbelief: Dr. Sherry Schwartz (Forensic Psychologist) explains how the "make-believe" nature of film sets can dull awareness of real danger.
  • “When you don’t think that something is actually real, then you would not calculate accurately what the potential risks are.” (45:58)
• Production Pressure: Exhausted crew, hasty schedules, and cost-cutting exacerbate risk.

Notable Quote

“What happens mentally is that you underestimate what the potential risks are. And what happened here is an egregious underestimation.”
— Dr. Sherry Schwartz (46:11)

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4. Lessons in Responsibility & Industry Reform

(42:26–43:52, 50:09–51:15)

• Lessons in Gun Safety: Both Nancy and Dr. Michelle Dupree reinforce proper weapon handling—whether forensics or film.
  • “... Always pick the gun up, holding it face down with a barrel pointing to the ground ... open the chamber, let them see me check it ... then give it to the witness.... Why would that not occur on a movie set?” — Nancy Grace (42:26)
• Broader Accountability: The episode underscores a need for Hollywood to move to prop guns incapable of chambering live ammo and to ensure experienced, uncompromised armorers are on every set.

Notable Quote

“It's simply a breakdown of the security of the scene. The only people there that are armed should be security personnel.”
— Paul Zeich (50:09)

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5. Baldwin’s Pattern: Deflection vs. Accountability

(Throughout)

• Nancy repeatedly returns to Baldwin’s instinct to avoid owning errors, both in his car crash excuse and his post-Rust statements.
• “Just tell the truth ... That would have been the truth. ... Why blame the gun and lie?” (17:51)

Final Word

“He blames the gun, he blames the dump truck, he can’t just take responsibility. Nancy Grace signing off.”
— Nancy Grace (51:29)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Baldwin's mindset:
  “He, Baldwin, claims the gun went off by itself. Okay, that’s not true. He lied.” (05:59)

• On the need for proper safety:
  “A prop gun is simply ... weapons that are capable of firing live ammunition. … They need to move to true prop guns that are incapable of chambering live ammunition.”
  — Paul Zeich (20:10)

• On missed red flags:
  “Why in the world would you have somebody that was fired off another similar job handling your weapon?”
  — Nancy Grace (33:26)

• On culture of laxity:
  “People got laxed, they got lackadaisical about fundamental [safety] ... it just opens the door for terrible things to happen.”
  — Paul Zeich (50:09)

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Important Timestamps

• Crash Incident Analysis: 02:32–06:40; 40:53–42:26
• Rust Shooting Recap and Panel Discussion: 06:40–15:37, 17:45–39:00
• Prop Gun/Blank Safety Explanation: 19:08–21:27, 24:35–25:47
• Brandon Lee Comparison: 26:28–27:25, 29:04–29:41
• Working Conditions & Safety Breakdowns: 27:25–29:04, 46:47–50:08
• Responsibility and Psychological Factors: 44:33–46:11

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Conclusion

This episode lays bare a pattern in Alec Baldwin’s public behavior—habitually blaming factors outside his control for repeated, preventable mishaps. Through legal, forensic, and entertainment industry experts, Nancy Grace deconstructs the narratives, prioritizes facts over spin, and calls for industry-wide reform. The key message: truth and accountability matter—in the courtroom, behind the camera, and on every stretch of road.

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Transcript

[Nancy Grace]

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Crime Stories With Nancy Grace.

Friday Night Special that's right, it's Friday night and it's special. Does the name Alec Baldwin ring a bell? Well, he's back in the last days. Alec Baldwin has a mystery car crash. And of course, find someone else to blame. What is the truth behind movie superstar Alec Baldwin's quote, whale car crash? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us. Hampton's police state, Alec Baldwin insists he was not to blame for ramming his Range Rover into a fixed object, a tree. New footage now emerging seemingly contradicts Baldwin's version of what happened in the crash. Now, Baldwin claims he slammed his wife's SUV into a tree. He says it happens after a. I guess this is a trash truck. A National Waste Services truck cut him off and sent him careening to the side of the road. Now new footage obtained, shot from inside the truck. The trash truck or dump truck shows it exiting unimpeded. Okay, according to this footage, we understand Baldwin's car then emerges to the right of the vehicle and shoots off the road and smashes into a tree. Huh. Alec Baldwin's Range Rover seemingly shows up in the shot of that I guess, dash cam they've got. Well after the truck completes the turn out onto the street, the quote, disputed maneuver. So based on that video, it seems that the dump truck had nothing to do with Baldwin's SUV slamming into a tree. I'd like to report nobody's hurt and Baldwin did not make a complete ass of himself this time for once. Now there are reports there was no sign at all the truck forced Baldwin out of his lane and there was no obstruction on the road that required Baldwin to swerve off the road. The significance of this is that he seemingly is blaming either his SUV or the dump truck. Just like he blamed the self firing gun on the set of the Rust movie where he, according to ballistics experts, pulled the trigger and shot Helena Hutchins dead. Now have I ever believed he did it on purpose? No, I don't think that. I think it was reckless and negligent that he fired a gun pointed directly at someone. Yes, he likely. You know, I'll go out on a limb. He clearly thought it was full of blanks, but he still pulled the trigger, fired the gun and it killed Helena Hutchins. He, Baldwin claims the gun went off by itself. Okay, that's not true. He lied. That said, this is what we know of the facts of Helena Hutchins shooting.

Death tragedy on the film set of a new Alec Baldwin movie and what police are calling a misfire of a.

[Dominic Romano]

Prop gun in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The sheriff's office there has just confirmed it was Baldwin who fired the prop.

[Nancy Grace]

Gun that killed a 42 year old female director of photography, Helena Hutchins. The film's director, Joel Souza, was also hurt. This incident happened on the set of the Western Rust.

[Dominic Romano]

Now detectives are investigating what type of.

[Nancy Grace]

Projectile discharged from this gun. You were just hearing our friend Christine Johnson with cbs. What really happened? According to reports, the assistant yelled out cold gun just before the shooting, which means the gun was safe, that it was loaded with a blank. So how do we have a woman dead, another film person injured? With me, an all star panel to make sense of it all if we can. With me, Dominic Lawyer, joining us out of New York at Romanolaw.com is specialty entertainment law. And I can tell you somebody's going to need a lawyer. Dr. Sherry Schwartz, forensic psychologist, Joining us, Karen L. Smith, forensic expert, host of Shattered Souls podcast@barebones forensics.com Paul Zeich, joining us, special guest, former police commander and author of Stop him from Killing Them on Amazon. And he has lots of experience using firearms with blanks during live action movie scenes like Terminator Salvation. Dr. Michelle Dupree, forensic pathologist, former medical examiner, author of Homicide investigation field guide and a former police detective. But first to Alexis Tureschuk, crimeonline.com investigative reporter, joining us from Hollywood, Alexis, what is getting folded into the story, right or wrong, is Alec Baldwin's history, his reputation for, let me just say, hot headedness, to put it euphemistically, if he thought it was a blank and it should have been a blank, then history aside, it was an accident. But how can it really be an accident when somebody loaded this prop gun with real bullets? You know what? Just start at the beginning.

[Dominic Romano]

They were on a set in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It's a western set style movie. So they were sitting in a church, an old church scene, and Alec Baldwin was sitting in one of the pews and he was practicing what's called a cross draw. And so that would be where the person take your left hand and grabs the gun out of the holster on the opposite hip, pulls it across to fire. He was practicing this move, standing, the cinematographer, which is the person that makes the movie beautiful. This is the person that direct, that filmed the scene. She was standing in front of him with the assistant director. I'm sorry, with the director standing right behind her. He was looking over her shoulder to see what it would look like. When Alex pulled the gun out. He pulled it out of the side, points it at her to show them, pulls the trigger and it fires a live round into her, hits her in the stomach and actually I believe goes through her and grazes the director sitting, standing right behind her.

[Nancy Grace]

Hutch is pronounced dead at an Albuquerque Hospital after being rushed to the emergency room. You know what? I always love playing 911 calls for a jury because it takes you back to what's really happening. Not a description, not someone recounting what happened. But you're hearing what really happened. Take a listen to the beginning of that 911 call.

[Dominic Romano]

What's the location of your emergency? We need a met. We need an ambulance out at Bonanza Creek Ranch right now. We've had two people shot on a movie set accidentally. You said someone was shot two people accidentally with gunshots. Add on movie set Bonanza Creek ramp. I'll connect you with medical detector.

[Allie (Certified Health Coach)]

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[Dominic Romano]

Who are you calling? Clear the road. Santa Fe firing EMF on the location of emergency. Bonanza street glance and had two people accidentally shot on a movie set by a prop gun. We need help immediately on.

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Come on.

[Dominic Romano]

Stay on the phone with me. We're gonna get some help, okay? Okay. What is your name? Naomi Mitchell. Ms. Mitchell, what's the phone number you're calling from? Five up. Don't hang up. Okay, hold on just one second. Sounds like somebody else is calling for 200. Everybody should be. They need some help. U.S. director and our cameraman camera woman has been shot.

[Nancy Grace]

Now, you hear repeatedly the word accident accidentally throughout that. But is it an accident? Very often when you have, for instance, a DUI crash, people go, well, it was an accident. But was it because the driver chooses to go to a bar to order drinks, to drink, to become legally intoxicated, to then get the car keys, walk to the car, get in the car, crank up reverse and drive out onto the roads? That sounds pretty deliberate. So is it an accident? Is it gross negligence? Well, take a listen to more of that 911 call.

[Dominic Romano]

So was it loaded with a real bullet or what? I don't. I cannot tell you that. Okay, we have two injuries from a movie gun shot. Okay, we're getting them out there already. Just stay on the phone with me, okay? Okay. That yelled at me at lunch. Kept asking about revisions can leave my chest and yell at me. He put the chested guns. He's responsible for what happened. Amy. No, no, no. I'm a script supervisor. I rarely. How many people were injured? Two that I know of. I was sitting, you were rehear and it went off. And I ran out. We all ran out. There were butt doubles over the ad and the camera woman. And the director. And the director. We're clearing the road. Could you come back? We're back on the way. We're back in the town. If it's all the way back in the western town. Is there any serious bleeding? I don't know. I ran out of the building. Fine. I still have to go through these.

[Nancy Grace]

Okay.

[Dominic Romano]

Are they completely alert? But we don't know.

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Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

Here's the thing. Just tell the truth. I thought there were blanks in the gun. I fired it. I shot her. It was an accident. I'm sorry. That would have been the truth. Or the road was wet, I swerved off the side of it and I crashed the darn SUV into the tree. Nobody was hurt. Nobody's getting sued. That would be the truth. Why blame the gun and lie? Why blame. What did he say? He blamed a, quote, whale car. Okay, Whale car crash. Why blame the driver of a dump truck? Just, you know, own up to it, man. Nobody's hurt, nobody's dead, nobody's dismembered. Just why lie? Which leads me back to the shooting of Helena Hutchins.

Paul's like, thank you for being with us. What went wrong? Obviously, there was a live bullet and what should have been a prop gun. But what happened?

[Paul Zeich]

Nancy? The only explanation for this is a systemic breakdown in systems that are in place to ensure that live ammunition is not present on the set.

[Nancy Grace]

Okay, now that was a lot of words, Paul Zeich. I think you're saying somebody didn't do their job.

[Paul Zeich]

Well, absolutely, somebody. Somebody did not do their job and catastrophically did not do that. There's no reason whatsoever for live ammunition to be on the set of any set because these weapons are capable of firing live rounds. They're not really prop guns. They're deadly weapons being used as props.

[Nancy Grace]

Okay, hold on Right there. I want to make that distinction. You're absolutely right.

[Allie (Certified Health Coach)]

When?

[Nancy Grace]

Look, I'm a trial lawyer, I'm a legal expert. You're the expert in this world. When I say prop gun, I mean they're using it as a prop. But you're making a very fine, a subtle but important distinction. A prop gun is a fake gun. I don't think it even can shoot. Is that right?

[Paul Zeich]

Exactly. You're talking about, say, a prop knife.

[Nancy Grace]

Correct.

[Paul Zeich]

It has a flat edge on it. It's incapable of cutting. These are things that are not deemed to be dangerous. A prop gun is simply as utilized on set are weapons that are capable of firing live ammunition and therefore accidentally live ammunition could be mixed with blank rounds. You know, given time. This is just a disaster waiting to happen. They need to move to true prop guns that are incapable of chambering live ammunition. Until that happens, this has a very strong chance of repeating itself.

[Nancy Grace]

Well, okay, tell me this. Paul Zeit. Guys, with me. Paul Zeit. He is a former police commander, he's an author, Screen Actors Guild and has experience using blanks during live action movie scenes where we all think they're shooting real guns. If you suspend your disbelief in movies like his Terminator Salvation, those aren't real guns. So why are they using a real gun to start with? Paul Zeich? And I mean, to me, having been forced to handle so many guns and so many homicides, what moron wouldn't make sure that there were blanks in the gun?

[Paul Zeich]

It's hard to imagine that during the loading of the weapon that that was not viewed very strictly as the weapon is loaded. And also there's a chain of custody issued here on the scene of Terminator Salvation. As we would go out and we would conduct a battle scene, if you will, in the middle of the night, we would be handed directly from the armorer, fully automatic weapons and magazines fully loaded with blanks. And we would head straight out to where the scene was to be shot. And then we would engage in the scene, you know, five, ten minutes later, hand the weapons straight back to the armor, all the ammunition back to the armor, all the magazines back to the armor. And we would not be able to touch those weapons again until the next scene. So from a chain of custody standpoint, it went directly from the armor directly to my hand, my, you know, the co actor's hands that were with me and that was maintained very strictly.

[Nancy Grace]

Hold on, Paul. I've got a soak in everything you're saying because Dominic Romano, high profile lawyer, joining us out of New York is specialty entertainment law. That's why Dominic's joining us today. Dominic, hold on. When you heard Paul Zeit say chain of custody, I immediately thought of a serial murderer that I prosecuted on one murder. We could get him on one. And there ended up, I would say, three weeks before trial. I was just looking at the evidence and I noticed that the bag that contained the evidence wasn't signed. It had never been signed by the homicide cop that picked it up from. There was DNA in there. It was blood from where it had been taken and carried to the crime lab. It wasn't written on the back. Did anybody tamper with it? No, he just didn't put his initials. I'm like, oh, dear Lord in heaven, the chain is broken. This could be attacked at trial. I had to go back out to the jail, stand there and look at this killer while we pulled his blood again. Then I carried it with my investigator myself back to the crime lab to have it retested. Praise the Lord in heaven. It was his DNA. Long story short, that's chain of custody. Your case can be lost. You can lose a serial killer because somebody didn't keep the chain to preserve the integrity of the trial. That's what I thought when Paul Zeit said chain of custody. But did you also hear him say Dominic Romano? He handed it back to the. It sounded like he was saying armor or armory. But I've been reading about this case. It's an armorer. Armor. Who is the person in charge of all the weapons?

[Paul Zeich]

I think Paul is absolutely right. Look, no one should ever be killed by a gun on a film set, period. Those are the words of Brandon Lee's sister. Brandon Lee, shot on a film set in the early 1990s. This should not happen. There are established protocols, chains of command. I mean, there. There appears to be some serious gross negligence on that set to allow that to happen. That is the appearance, and I don't know what evidence can come out to rebut that presumption.

[Nancy Grace]

A live round in. Well, as Paul Zeich has corrected me, it's not a prop gun. They were using real guns. Hey, let me ask you a question, Paul Zeich, explain the difference in what a blank looks like as opposed to a live round. A bullet. We're saying live rounds. We're talking about a bullet. What's the difference? Can't you just look at them and you can see the difference in most cases?

[Paul Zeich]

Absolutely. It's very clear. You can see the difference in some types of calibers, say 223, if you will. That's what an AR15 would shoot. The blanks are kind of crimped at the end to almost look like there's a bullet on the end of them. But any sort of trained professional whatsoever, when you're handling a blank, you know it's a blank. When it's a bullet, you know it's a bullet. The blank does not have a lead projectile or a steel projectile at the end of the round. So at the end it's either flat or it's slightly crimped to hold in the gunpowder, which, you know, the firearm usually needs the gunpowder to correctly function the weapon and cycle the weapon. And that's one of the reasons why blanks are used.

[Nancy Grace]

Okay, Paul's like, I really respect you, but you're gonna have to dumb me down for me, okay? Because I would have to put you through intensive training before you take the stand because a lot of people do not know what you just said. Just think about it and think if there's a way you can say it in more simple terms, what's the difference between a blank and a live bullet when you look at it? Speak English, man. In the meantime, wait a minute. You mentioned Brandon Lee and you're absolutely right. We pulled sound of other cases almost identical to this. This is not the first time it's happened, believe it or not. Tyler, could you roll our cut 44? Let's follow up on what Paul Zeich said about Brandon Lee.

[Paul Zeich]

Where did the bullet come from that killed Brandon Lee? Some believe a piece of a prop bullet without gunpowder in it may have been left accidentally in the gun when the blank was fired at Brandon. Some feel it shot out the prop bullet, mortally wounding him.

[Dominic Romano]

The movie was an accident waiting to happen.

[Paul Zeich]

The Crow crew member we spoke with says that there are many opportunities for an accident to happen. Are the working conditions on the set of the Crow particularly bad? Extremely long hours, 18 hour days, back to back. At times pushing 90 to 100 hours a week and six day weeks is way too much. Do you think that that overwork, that exhaustion might have resulted in this accident?

[Dominic Romano]

Safety precautions, all of them, were definitely not followed.

[Paul Zeich]

It could have been prevented with better management. The publicist for the movie, the Crow denies that the working conditions were unsafe. Certainly everyone was, was very tired and exhausted from the shoot. These are professionals and they're used to working in conditions like this.

[Nancy Grace]

Okay, guys, you were hearing our friends at Inside Edition, and I want to follow up on what we're just hearing with Alexis Torres. Chuk. I played that sound for a reason, Alexis? Because on the Alec Baldwin set I've rusted, there apparently were problems with working conditions. A group of the crew had walked out, I think, the night before, claiming that they had bad hotels. They were an hour away from a hotel or motel. And if they worked late into the night, they have to drive through, I guess, the desert. And a lot of them were actually sleeping in their cars overnight. That's just some of the complaints I've heard. But what are the other complaints, if any, on the Alec Baldwin movie set?

[Dominic Romano]

Well, there have been complaints that things were not safe, quote. But one of the person that is being directly blamed for a lot of the unsafe is when you were listening to the 911 calling, you said you heard the woman saying that he was yelling at me, things like that. This is the assistant director that they're talking about. And this is the assistant director, David hall, who handed the gun to Baldwin and said, this is a cold gun. So what the people on the set were saying is that Halls was not a responsible person. He was very angry. He was. He was making the job very difficult for everybody to do, and they didn't trust him.

[Nancy Grace]

Wait a minute. You're saying David Halls was an assistant director?

[Dominic Romano]

Yes.

[Nancy Grace]

Okay, well, what about the armorer? Isn't she the one responsible for all the weapons and the. And the blanks or the bullets? Guys, take another listen to our cut 43. This is about practically the same thing happening before. Listen.

[Paul Zeich]

It was here at the Carolco Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina, that actor Brandon Lee was filming the Crow. Ironically, the film is about a man who dies and comes back to life to avenge his death. Shortly after midnight last Tuesday, Brandon Lee was preparing to film a routine action scene. The script called for him to get shot at as he walked through a door carrying a bag of groceries. Michael Massey, the actor doing the shooting, is reportedly devastated by Lee's death and remains in seclusion. The gun he was using was supposed to be loaded with blanks when the cameras rolled. Brandon Lee was performing for the last time.

[Nancy Grace]

The first episodes of a reality show starring Alec Baldwin, his wife and their seven children are hitting the airwaves now. According to a string of PR specialists, no one could imagine any advisor would.

Have recommended the Baldwins agree to a.

Reality series in the very best of times, let alone after the shooting death of cinematographer Halina Hutchins.

Weigh you in, Karen Smith.

[Dominic Romano]

Well, we deal a lot with forensics in physics. When we do a reconstruction, we use snippets of time and sometimes that can be split seconds. And this includes trajectory of projectiles. And this trajectory can generally be explained by the reporting. Alec Baldwin was reported to be sitting in a church pew to align a camera angle when the gun was fired. Alina Hutchins then collapsed on the floor and Joel Souza was struck in the clavicle. That's an upward trajectory, which means both Hutchins and Souza were standing up when the event occurred.

[Paul Zeich]

The projectile that perforated Helena body and subsequently struck Joel.

[Dominic Romano]

Now, in order for that to happen, the kinetic energy, which is energy as the result of motion, would be very high. We're dealing with mass, or the amount of matter in an object. And energy dispersion guns carry a high volume of energy in a small space. And that, from my experience, it tells me that it was something other than just the paper or plastic wadding from a blank round. That needs to be confirmed by the M.E. and the investigators. But there are reports of live ammunition bullets being on the set and that particular gun allegedly being used for target practice that morning.

[Paul Zeich]

There's a lot of questions that need.

[Dominic Romano]

To be answered by the investigators and the me.

[Nancy Grace]

A gun. A gun for the set being used as target practice. Paul Zeich, that. That shouldn't be that. You've got crew members out shooting bottles. I think that that's coming out with live bullets. And use that same gun for a scene in a church full of people.

[Paul Zeich]

And Nancy, I just want to clarify the prior point. So very simply. A blank is a shell casing with gunpowder in it with no bullet. A bullet is the same exact thing with more gunpowder and a live bullet at the end of it that is made to travel through the barrel and exit the weapon. But back to what you were saying. That's a cardinal rule that's been broken whether you're involved in police training or you're involved in a movie set. Keeping live ammunition away from weapons that fire live ammunition and keeping weapons that fire blanks away from those instances. And when you mix those two together, the odds of somebody having a spare live round is in one of their pockets, or you name it, is super high. And that sounds very sloppy. And it just opens the door for terrible things to happen. And that's where the systemic breakdown and that controlled environment.

[Nancy Grace]

I'm telling you, Paul Zeich, you're right. Super sloppy is one way to put it. Gross negligence or unintentional murder is another way to put it. I think I hear Dominic Romano jumping in. Go ahead.

[Paul Zeich]

Basically, it's a catastrophic miscalculation. I think two people Here should be. We should focus on one is the armor. Right? This is only, according to reports, her second movie. The chairs read. And the assistant director, Dave Halls, who you mentioned before, according to reports he was fired from a 2019 production of Freedom's past after a crew member suffered a minor injury.

[Nancy Grace]

Whoa, wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Wait, wait.

You got me drinking from the fire hydrant, which is not a bad thing. It's too much at once.

Hold on.

Why in the world would you have somebody that was fired off another similar job handling your weapon? Okay. Is that what you just said, Dominic?

[Paul Zeich]

Okay, almost. So almost. The armorer is 24 years old. The person handling the weapons, it's only her second film. She was just in a podcast last month where she said, you know, she's a bit nervous about her film, but it went well. Her father is apparently a famous armor. Okay, so we have that an inexperienced armor number two, we have the assistant director known as the ad, Dave Hulse. Apparently, according to a report he was fired from the 2019 production. The movie was Freedom Pass after crew members suffered, guess what, a minor injury when a gun unexpectedly discharged Dominic Romano.

[Nancy Grace]

The word similar transactions are jumping to mind. I mean, this, this solidifies my thought that this is not an accident. Because an accident when you totally don't see it coming, it's just like out of the blue. But if this guy, if it's correct, the AD had a previous incident where somebody was shot on a set, even if it was a minor injury, then you should have seen either knew or should have known. Would you agree with that, Dominic Romano?

[Paul Zeich]

They're going to be be some serious questions to be asked and there have to be answers. And if we don't have good answers, someone is either going to be involved in a very expensive lawsuit or depending on what they knew and when they knew it and how careless they were, probably facing some time. The other issue you alluded to earlier is cost cutting. It's rampant in the industry right now. And the production company's decision not to book the crew hotel rooms near the actual set, but to have them travel an hour in each direction to get to and from their accommodation, to have long hours where people walked off the set earlier that day in protest. So this is a combination, what turned out to be a lethal combination, a catastrophic calculation on the part of the production company.

[Nancy Grace]

Well, you just said a mouthful, all in a good way. Between the armorer being inexperienced, the AD having a prior similar transaction, and budget cuts problems amongst the crew. Take a listen to our cut six that are from our friends at News Nation.

[Paul Zeich]

Now let's start with the people responsible for handling a gun. There are no ubiquitous rules across all film sets, but generally there are some guidelines that they follow. Adhere into a budget. Budget usually plays a big role. On many sets. There are no fewer than three people responsible for monitoring a weapon. The prop master who's in charge of all props is often supported by a safety officer and a stunt coordinator. And depending on the state, you may also need to bring in an armorer whose only job is handling weapons.

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[Nancy Grace]

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Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

In the Last Days, Hampton detectives find no criminality in Alec Baldwin's car crash striking a fixed object. But it couldn't just stop there. Baldwin had to blame the driver of a dump truck for him. Baldwin veering off the road and hitting a tree. Baldwin, who killed a cinematographer, Helena Hutchins, on the set of a Western movie, says he quotes felt bad for crashing his wife's car. Okay, but just keep telling the truth. You don't have to lie about it. And for once, Baldwin was not throwing some sort of a tantrum. He actually managed to keep his piehole shut. What happened the day of the crash in the Hamptons, we may never know. According to footage obtained from inside the dump truck, the dump truck or trash truck had nothing to do with Baldwin veering off the side of the road. Okay, no harm, no foul. Nobody's hurt. The significance of this is that he came up with a lie, seemingly just like the lie according to many he told on the Set of rust about the death of a young mom.

Dr. Dupree, I'm sure you, like myself, have had to handle weapons in front of juries, and I learned this from watching a pro try cases. I would always pick the gun up, holding it face down with a barrel pointing to the ground so the jury or anyone else would not be alarmed. What you don't want to do is scare your jury. I would walk in front of the jury holding the weapon nose down, open the chamber, let them see me check it, hold it up like I was examining it through, you know, my eye level so they can see that it was empty, then shut it, and then give it to the witness without fail. Even if it was a weapon that I knew was inoperable, that was scary. Sop. Why? Why would that not occur on a movie set, but describe how you're supposed to handle weapons?

[Dominic Romano]

Exactly. Nancy, you described it perfectly. That is exactly what you should do. And if you're giving a weapon to someone else, normally you have the chamber open so that they can also see. And then you both check it and know that it's, it's empty or that the blanks are in it.

[Nancy Grace]

Tell me what you can discern about what Karen Smith, forensics expert, just told us about the injuries, what happened.

[Dominic Romano]

Nancy, even though these are, quote, prop guns or blanks, they can still obviously do devastating damage. The wadding or whatever they are filled with, even in a blank. But this was not a blank. This was an actual projectile. And as we know, you mean a bullet.

[Nancy Grace]

Speak English, please. A bullet?

[Dominic Romano]

Yes. Yes, this is a bullet. And the caliber of that bullet, of the gun, is what is going to determine how much damage is done. As she explained, the higher the caliber, the more energy in that bullet and so the more damage done to the physical body. And of course, the location where that bullet enters the body in this case was devastating.

[Nancy Grace]

You know, another issue to Dr. Sherry Schwartz. I've been on a lot of TV sets, obviously, and movie sets for, you know, cameos or some legal issue. And I gotta tell you, Dr. Sherry Schwartz, a movie set takes on a whole. It's like you're in a different world. Like when you go to the movies and you sit down and it goes dark, your mind takes you there. When you're on a movie set. I've never been on a single movie set that went on time. You go till one or two o' clock in the morning, it's pitch dark outside. You keep going until you get the shot or you finish the scene or whatever it's called in movie World. I think that there is a suspended fear. You think you're at a movie set, like when you go to Disneyland or when you're on vacation on a cruise ship, you suspend your normal thinking, it doesn't seem real. And you're not thinking, wow, there's a gun, I could get shot. Because it's, quote, just a movie, it's not real. How do we, let me just say, suspend our disbelief, Suspend rational rules of functioning when you're on a movie set or in a movie, you know, like in movies where there's some nut with a gun and you hear a sound, but you don't think it's real because you're in a movie, what happens in the human, human mind? Dr. Sherry?

[Dominic Romano]

Well, when you don't think that something is actually real, then you would not calculate accurately what the potential risks are. Right. And so there is this gun on the set, but everybody thinks, oh, it's just make believe, we're setting this up to film it, nobody's actually going to get hurt. And so what happens mentally is that you underestimate what the potential risks are. And what happened here is an egregious underestimation. Right? So for the rest of us, it's make believe, maybe even for the actor. They know that they're just playing a role and everybody around them might know they're playing a role. But there are people on the set who are responsible for that gun and for taking that proper care and knowing what the potential risks are.

[Nancy Grace]

Back to you, alexis [e-mail] investigative report. You have heard Dominic Romano. Paul's like, well, everyone on the panel weighing in, but apparently there were a lot of problems and a lot of disgruntled crew members. I understand that one of the motels they had set them up to stay overnight was at a place for the homeless and there were drug addicts there. They were afraid to stay there. What was going on on the set?

[Dominic Romano]

Well, it seems like what they were trying to do was make this film as cheaply as possible. Understandable, but they were putting people's lives at risk. These hotels were 50 miles away. So after working 14 hour days, the crew was having to drive over an hour to get to their hotel. Then they would have to be back within like six hours. So they would get almost no sleep at all. But they were also saying that things were just not safe. There had been an incident a few days earlier that one of the prop guns, again, prop gun, real gun, had been accidentally Fired. And so the crew had been complaining to the producer saying this is not a safe working environment. And they walked off the set. And so Hollywood is very much a union business, but the producers hired non union people to replace them. These non union people though, are not the people. That's not the armorer and it's not the assistant director. And everybody's been talking. There is a lot of line of protocol. You have so many steps in the line of defense. So that when this gun got to Alice Baldwin, at least two other people were responsible for saying that it wasn't loaded.

[Nancy Grace]

I mean, didn't somebody even scream out cold gun? I mean, they have to yell it out. You know what you were just saying? I know so many times for different shoots, I don't know who he is that carries that comes over. And they have to do it a certain way. They have to say a certain thing. And they say it really loudly. I don't know why, but I'm sure there's a reason for it. Just like they would yell out cold gun and everybody would hear it. But I guess they yelled it out without checking Alexis.

[Dominic Romano]

And there are reports that. Yes. So there were three guns that were set up and they were put on a table outside the church set. And this is because of COVID 19 protocols. So not a lot of people are in the. If it's an enclosed set, they're not there. Three guns. So the assistant director picked it up. Dave hall, as the other guest said, you know, has a history of a lot of accidents on set and handed it to Baldwin and he is the one that yelled out cold gun. There's no. Nobody has said. There's so many people have spoken to the police on the set. So many of the other crew members and they said they're. They didn't know whether it actually was empty or not. And these guns were used at lunch. This is a post lunch break. So they broke for lunch at 12:30. They come back after lunch. During that lunchtime, there are reports that the crew members were using this gun and other guns to shoot beer bottles out in the desert area and using it as target practice. So there could have been alive. And Larry said there was lots of live ammunition. Nobody was told they couldn't bring live ammunition on set. That's another thing that.

[Nancy Grace]

Why would you need a live round on set?

[Dominic Romano]

That's the big problem here. And I think that is that.

[Nancy Grace]

Paul, jump in.

[Paul Zeich]

Yeah, I'd like to jump in there. It's simply a breakdown of the security of the scene. The only people there that are armed should be security personnel. And you know, in my years, my decade of fighting to keep workplaces safe and to stop stalking offenders from killing victims, I can tell you one thing, and that is nobody thinks the unthinkable is going to happen. It's a matter of just human thinking. They think that, well, that happened to somebody else. It didn't happen to me. And because this is somewhat of a rare occurrence on set, people got laxed, they got lackadaisical about fundamental when it comes to shooting a scene such as this. And just like at any workplace, this is a workplace out in the middle of the desert, just like it would be in an office building. Those protocols broke down and people at work attempting to do the right thing for the right reasons had a catastrophic, devastating thing happen. Because we as human beings think, well, if it hasn't happened, it won't happen. And that's just not the reality of life when it comes to dangerous events.

[Nancy Grace]

I mean, just like human said, the gun went off on its own when he shot Helena Hutchins dead. Now he slams into a tree and he blames a mystery dump truck. Video reveals otherwise. Nancy Grace signing off.

Goodbye, friend.

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[Nancy Grace]

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[Nancy Grace]

This is an iHeart podcast.