yesterday here in manhattan. but it looks like we have a long legal road ahead and a team of legal of legal representation behind baldwin who is hoping to fight these charges. all right. gloria, thank you very much. joining me now is dutch merrick, a prop master and founder and chief instructor of prop gun safety llc. dutch, appreciate you joining us this morning. just hearing, you know, gloria s reporting, industry professionals have said that it s the armorer and the assistant director who has the responsibility to ensure that the prop gun is safe before they are used. baldwin has been charged. what s your reaction to that knowing the industry s standards and practices? well, it shocked all of us armorers when we heard the story as it unfolded as the investigation exposed what happened on the show. all of the normal rules and processes seemed to have been
you feel like at least the industry has changed its standards and practices or, i guess, strengthened certain protocols? yeah, there is definitely more scrutiny on our department, the armorer department, when we handle the guns. armorers work under a prop master. we are all qualified to do that. you know, i work regularly on the show s.e.a.l. team on paramount plus. over six seasons, we have fired 1.5 million blank rounds without an injury. that s one tv show. there is tens of millions of rounds fired. what we do is inherently safe. the challenge is when you are on a show like that where you have brand-new rank amateurs cutting corners, there is not enough time, and they missed a beat. dutch amemerrick, appreciate your time this morning. thank you. thank you.
isn t it, from the districk attorney after months of investigations district attorney after months of investigations. it attorney after months of investigations. investigations. it is surprising - investigations. it is surprising to - investigations. it is - surprising to everybody that they re going after alec baldwin personally. everybody anticipated that the firearms expert and the prop master were going to be charged. but it s quite a shock. and what s more interesting is that how they re pleading it. there s two charges that they re asking for and the alternative. one is just 18 months in prison. but if he s convicted of the other one, which is manslaughter and carrying out something that s lawful. so you re doing something that s lawful that happens to kill somebody. because of the use of the firearm, it could lead up to five years. so, it s a very curious tactic. one maybe intentionally done to confuse a jury. intentionally done to confuse a u . ., intentionally done to con
you brought up hannah gutierrez reed, the armorer. she was, essentially, a rookie. she had studied under her father, who was an armorer in the industry. she had just come off her first project as lead armorer. and as she said, she was not only armorer on but she had a second job, assisting on props. and so, some of the questions around her was, did the production hire the most experienced person? or was there some, essentially, cost cutting around that? it s important, jim, to think about, where all this leads. and as we learn more, the charges have not yet been filed understand but they are eminent at this point. and so, we will have serious repercussions, probably, across a number of injuries. jim, catherine, thank you so much. a pleasure. up next, we have a former prop master for saddening live, who says he saw some red flags,
anti-abortion activists are rallying there, and this is the march for life demonstration. this is the first time that they have been at a march like this since roe versus wade was overturned. and plus the actors union and the screen actors gild are coming to the defense of alec baldwin arguing that the channels against him indicate a lack of understanding of how a film set operates. we will ask a prop master if he agrees. we will work with you every step of the way to help you u achieve it. so let us focus on the how. just tell us - what s your why? there s always a fresh deal on the subway app. like this one! 50% off?! that deal s so good we don t even need an eight-time all-star to tell you about it. waithat? get it before it s gone onhe subway app!