Alec Baldwin’s ‘Rust’ fined by New Mexico for willful gun safety failures

foxnews.com:

Rust Movie Productions LLC, the production company behind Alec Baldwin’s ill-fated Western, was issued the maximum possible fine against a film production company for firearms safety failures on the set where a cinematographer was fatally shot by the actor.

On Wednesday, New Mexico’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau announced that Rust Movie Productions must pay $139,793, the highest level of citation and maximum fine allowable by state law.

It distributed a scathing narrative of safety failures in violation of standard industry protocols, including testimony that production managers took limited or no action to address two misfires on the set before the fatal shooting.The bureau also documented gun safety complaints from crew members that went unheeded and said weapons specialists were not allowed to make decisions about additional safety training. "What we had, based on our investigators' findings, was a set of obvious hazards to employees regarding the use of firearms and management’s failure to act upon those obvious hazards," Bob Genoway, bureau chief for occupational safety, told The Associated Press.

Alec Baldwin, the producer and star of "Rust," said he was pointing the gun at Halyna Hutchins at her instruction on the New Mexico set when it went off without his pulling the trigger. (Mark Sagliocco/Getty Images for National Geographic) At a ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe on Oct.