Hollywood prop master lists series of ‘breaches’ in fatal ‘Rust’ shooting
An experienced prop master detailed a series of shocking protocol breaches that he blames in the fatal shooting involving Alec Baldwin on the set of “Rust.”
“First and foremost, the most important protocol is no live ammo on the set,” Scott Reeder, 51, said on his TikTok channel that gives a behind-the-scenes look at Hollywood productions.
“A live round is a cartridge with a slug in it — a bullet that can kill someone,” said Reeder, who said he’d been “hesitant” to speak out before seeing the witness statements released Sunday by the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office.
“It appears that rule was breached,” he said.
“Next, once you have your cart set up with your guns, you do not leave it unattended. You always have someone with their eyes on it from your department,” he said.
“From what I’ve read, the first assistant director walked outside of the set to the weapons cart, and grabbed one of three weapons that were sitting there, on a cart that was unattended.
“That’s a breach,” he insisted.
“And the next breach in protocol is the first [assistant director] grabbing a gun — no one should grab a gun except the armorer or the prop master,” he said.
Reeder — whose bio includes “Machete” and “Friday the 13th” — also detailed the lengthy checklist of safety measures usually taken to ensure that weapons used in such scenes are loaded with “dummy” rounds.
“From my understanding, it was a close-up on Alec Baldwin’s revolver. As he pulls it out of his holster and cocks as he’s pointing it out the camera, and since the camera’s looking right down the barrel of the revolver, you’ve got to have dummy bullets in the cylinder,” he explained.
“If you’re following protocol, you would take your dummy rounds into the set with an empty gun,” he said.
He then showed a small tool that is used to check that the barrel is clear, and how the assistant director “shakes each” bullet to make sure it is a dummy before inserting it in the gun on set.
“But none of that happened,” he said, based on the witness statements.
“The first AD grabbed the gun off the cart, goes inside, hands it to Alec Baldwin and says, ‘Cold gun.’
“And unfortunately, you probably know the rest,” he said.
Reeder also said it was “bugging” him that the fatality was being dismissed as a “misfire.”
“Well, a misfire is when a gun doesn’t fire,” he said.
Thursday’s fatality on the New Mexico set of Baldwin’s new movie “Rust” would instead be an “accidental discharge,” he said, saying the “protocols that were breached … led to the firearm killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza.”
“My heart goes out to everyone involved in this tragedy,” he said.
