Alec Baldwin Accidental Shooting of Halyna Hutchins

About

Alec Baldwin Accidental Shooting Of Halyna Hutchins refers to the event that took place on the set of the upcoming movie Rust, which stars Baldwin. The accidental shooting, which occurred in late October 2021, killed the director of photography Halyna Hutchins and put director Joel Souza in the hospital. Following the shooting, the event inspired many memes at the expense of Baldwin, who has a long history of anti-gun advocacy.

Origin

The movie in question, Rust, is reportedly about a young boy who is set to be hanged for the accidental killing of a rancher.^[5] While on set, it is believed that Baldwin was handed a prop gun that had live rounds or blanks in it, though it is still being questioned as to how Halyna Hutchins, the director of photography, and Joel Souza, the director, would have the prop gun pointed at them when the trigger was pulled, as details have yet to be released.

The shooting happened late on Thursday, October 21st, 2021, while filming was going on. Shortly after the incident, Deadline Hollywood tweeted^[1] the news.

Female Crewmember Dies After Prop Gun Misfire On New Mexico Set Of Alec Baldwin Film ‘Rust’ https://t.co/8qfLIST9Re

— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) October 22, 2021

Memes related to the event began appearing online shortly after the story broke. For example, one of the retweets on Deadline's post came from the Twitter^[2] account @RealYungCripp, who replied with an image of Baldwin alongside the phrase "You Miss 100% of the shots you never take" photoshopped over it, earning 550 likes in 12 hours (shown below).

Spread

Memes about the shooting continued to spread, with the iFunny^[3] account RidinWithBiden creating and posting a GIF from Seinfeld implying that the entire Baldwin family would kill a director of photography (shown below).

On the subreddit /r/Memes,^[4] Redditor arinintheskye posted a meme about the event using Danny Devito from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia in his So Anyway, I Started Blasting format, earning 50 upvotes in 12 hours (shown below).

Updates

Alec's Response

On October 22nd, 2021, Alec Baldwin tweeted^[6] a statement about the accidental killing. In the statement, he says he is fully cooperating with the police on the investigation and offers his support to the grieving family of Halyna (shown below).

Worker Strikes And On-Set Safety Concerns

Prior to the shooting that killed Halyna Hutchins, there were multiple crew members who walked off the set, outright quit, and otherwise made complaints to various higher ups about the lack of safety seen on the set. According to the LA Times^[7], there were several crewmembers who were replaced by nonunion ones just six hours prior to the fatal shooting, with the speculation being that the nonunion camera crew would be cheaper and able to work with less restrictions. Further things that have come to light as part of a warrant by the police is that reportedly there were people shooting the guns off prior, safety protocols not being followed multiple times with accidental discharges happening twice before, and were keeping live and prop ammo and guns next to each other.

Manslaughter Charges

On January 19th, 2023, Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed were charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter a piece. Should they be found guilty, they could face prison sentences of five years or 18 months.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References