Crew member sues Alec Baldwin, others over 'Rust' shooting – Andrew Dalton, Associated Press
The head of lighting on the film “Rust” filed a lawsuit Wednesday over Alec Baldwin's fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the New Mexico set of the Western, alleging negligence that caused him “severe emotional distress" that will haunt him forever.
Serge Svetnoy said in the suit that the bullet that killed his close friend Hutchins, narrowly missed him, and he held her head as she died.
The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court names nearly two dozen defendants associated with the film including Baldwin, who was both star and a producer; David Halls, the assistant director who handed Baldwin the gun; and Hannah Gutierrez Reed, who was in charge of weapons on the set.
It is the first known lawsuit of what could be many stemming from the Oct. 21 shooting, which also injured “Rust” director Joel Souza.
“Simply put there was no reason for a live bullet to be placed in that .45 Colt revolver or to be present anywhere on the ‘Rust’ set, and the presence of a bullet in a revolver posed a lethal threat to everyone in its vicinity," the lawsuit says.
The suit says Svetnoy was setting up lighting within 6 or 7 feet (2 meters) of Baldwin.
“What happened next will haunt Plaintiff forever,” the suit says. “He felt a strange and terrifying whoosh of what felt like pressurized air from his right. He felt what he believed was gunpowder and other residual materials directly strike the right side of his face.”
Then, with his glasses scratched and his hearing muffled, he knelt to help Hutchins, the suit said.
The lawsuit seeks both compensatory and punitive damages to be determined later. It was filed in Los Angeles County because the plaintiff and most of the defendants are based there.
Attorneys and representatives for the defendants did not immediately respond to email and phone messages seeking comment on the suit.
Gutierrez Reed's lawyer Jason Bowles said in a statement Wednesday that “we are convinced this was sabotage and Hannah is being framed. We believe that the scene was tampered with as well before the police arrived.”
Bowles said his client has provided authorities with a full interview and continues to assist them. The statement did not address the lawsuit.
“We are asking for a full and complete investigation of all of the facts, including the live rounds themselves, how they ended up in the ‘dummies' box, and who put them in there,” the statement said.
Gutierrez Reed said last week that she had inspected the gun Baldwin shot but doesn't know how a live bullet ended up inside.
Halls, the assistant director, said last week that he hoped the tragedy prompted the film industry to “reevaluate its values and practices” to ensure no one is harmed again, but did not provide details.
Authorities have said that Halls handed the weapon to Baldwin and announced “cold gun,” indicating that the weapon was safe to use.
Baldwin said on video on Oct. 30 that the shooting was a “one-in-a-trillion event” saying, “We were a very, very well-oiled crew shooting a film together and then this horrible event happened.”
The director Souza told detectives that Baldwin was rehearsing a scene in which he drew a revolver from his holster and pointed it toward the camera, which Hutchins and Souza were behind, according to court records in New Mexico.
Souza said the scene did not call for the use of live rounds, and Gutierrez Reed said real ammo should never have been present, according to court records.
Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said there was “some complacency” in how weapons were handled on the set. Authorities have said much investigation still needs to be done before getting to a point where criminal charges could be considered.
Hollywood professionals have been baffled by the circumstances of the movie-set shooting. It already has led to other production crews stepping up safety measures.
New Mexico officials tout strategy as economic springboard – Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
They announced that the federal government has awarded the state a $1 million grant for the effort. That follows an initial $1.5 million in federal recovery funding that New Mexico used to develop the strategy and to begin hiring economic relief coordinators to help rural communities and small businesses.
The latest grant will be used to implement the strategy, which state Economic Development Secretary Alicia J. Keyes outlined for a group of business leaders with the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce.
Keyes told the group that the pandemic has had an effect on everyone, resulting in lost lives, connections and opportunities. She said her family had its own challenges during the state's lockdown. She talked about planning grocery runs and hoarding water and other supplies and about the low-wage workers who were essential for keeping businesses open.
“The whole picture of the economy has been a very real reminder that as a society we’re intertwined socially and economically, and we heard this over and over again as we were doing this strategic plan,” Keyes said. “The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. The gap is growing.”
State officials noted New Mexico's wages and job growth have not been keeping pace with neighboring states, that investment funds are lacking and that higher education offerings are not aligned with what's needed in the job market. They said the problems grew after the Great Recession and that the pandemic made things worse.
Keyes said the new strategy looks at where New Mexico can build the most momentum. She highlighted several industries, including aerospace, cybersecurity, biosciences, film and television, global trade and green energy.
Part of the work will include improving access to capital and recovery resources for businesses and communities. The plan also calls for assessing the availability of incubator and start-up resources and creating an online dashboard to track their impact.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham also recently signed an executive order to streamline regulations to boost New Mexico's competitiveness, a request made by the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce after it conducted a study last year that looked at barriers to business.
“We don't want this plan to sit on a shelf. We need to take action now and we feel like we're doing that," Keyes said, before making a plea to business owners. "Please join us. This is an all-together thing. We're not going to be able to do it alone.”
She said the equation will have to include higher wages, more schedule flexibility for workers and more options for attracting employees.
The state Economic Development Department also plans to ask lawmakers during the next legislative session for more funding to market the state, for job training and for local economic development projects.
Rob Black, president and CEO of the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce, said collecting data will help to hold the state accountable as it implements the strategy. He pointed to a number of metrics included in the plan, from tracking unemployment and poverty in rural New Mexico to the percentage of college graduates employed in the state six months after graduation.
COVID-19 infections, deaths, and hospitalizations remain high in New Mexico and the Navajo Nation – KUNM News, Associated Press, NMDOH
The New Mexico Department of Health today announced 1,337 new COVID-19 cases and 13 additional deaths related to the virus.
The state’s totals are now 288,557 cases and 5,148 deaths since the pandemic began more than a year ago. Bernalillo County still represents the bulk of the infections.
Hospitalizations in the state are high but steady at 490 people hospitalized with COVID-19.
The Navajo Nation on Wednesday reported 126 more COVID-19 cases and eight additional deaths.
The tribe had gone without reporting a coronavirus-related death 25 times in the previous 40 days before reporting one on Tuesday.
The latest numbers pushed the tribe’s totals to 37,737 confirmed COVID-19 cases from the virus since the pandemic began more than a year ago.
The known death toll now is 1,507.
Based on cases from Oct. 22-Nov. 4, the Navajo Department of Health on Monday issued an advisory for 56 communities due to an uncontrolled spread of COVID-19.
Gallup site to be studied for Indian Health Service facility -Gallup Independent, Associated Press
The federal agency that provides healthcare for Native people has entered into an agreement with the Navajo Nation to assess whether a location on the eastern outskirts of Gallup is the most suitable site for construction of a new medical center.
Indian Health Service spokesperson Jenny Notah said $17 million has been appropriated for planning and evaluation work for the project.
The balance of the projected cost of $615 million awaits congressional appropriation, Notah told the Gallup Independent.
The agency's current facility in Gallup was built in the 1950s and has been at the center of controversy even before the pandemic because it lacks infrastructure and equipment to serve many patients.
As a result, many patients have to be transferred or referred to other hospitals in the region.
Policing initiatives in New Mexico attract scrutiny - By Morgan Lee Associated Press
Advocates for alternatives to mass incarceration in New Mexico are warning of potential adverse outcomes in a public safety initiative from the governor aimed at reducing crime and violence amid a record-setting spate of homicides in Albuquerque.
Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is advocating for a $100 million effort to hire an additional 1,000 new "community oriented" law enforcement officers statewide and create new standards for pretrial release among people accused of certain crimes who are presumed to be dangerous.
The New Mexico SAFE coalition warned a panel of legislators on Monday that those proposals could increase the number of people held in county jails who are prone to coronavirus contagion, and might initiate or exacerbate over-policing of minority communities.
Precise details of the governor's criminal justice proposals are not yet available, as lawmakers prepare for the start of the annual 2022 legislative session in January. Legislators have outlined a long list of criminal justice proposals that also seek to reduce gun violence through social programs and alternative policing strategies.
Voters in 2016 approved a constitutional amendment that did away with money-based bail for defendants who might languish in prison because they are poor. The statewide vote cleared the way for judges to deny bail before trial for the most high-risk, dangerous defendants — though many prosecutors voice frustrations with the evaluation system.
Kim Chavez Cook, an appellate attorney with the state Office of the Public Defender, urged legislators to be wary of any proposed "rebuttable presumption" of dangerousness for people charged with certain crimes.
She warned that a rollback of bail reforms might flout the state constitution — and could put more people behind bars before conviction at high-turnover jails that are susceptible to COVID-19.
"It's a tool — pretrial detention — that we want to use sparingly and only when necessary," Chavez Cook said.
On proposals to vastly expand police forces, Barron Jones of the ACLU cautioned legislators to avoid any regression to policing practices that lead to excessive force, or that might disproportionately target minority communities.
Albuquerque's police force is in the midst of sweeping reforms aimed at reining in police brutality with guidance from the U.S. Department of Justice and court oversight, under a consent decree initiated in 2014.
Jones commended a pilot program in Albuquerque that leaves police out of some emergency responses to mental health emergencies.
"Figure out ways to set up law enforcement for success and reduce some of those roles," Jones said.
The New Mexico SAFE coalition includes groups ranging from Criminal Defense Lawyers to the American Civil Liberties Union, New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops and the NAACP.
Hopi at crossroads of maintaining language for elected posts - By Felicia Fonseca Associated Press
Candidates for Hopi chairman move easily between the tribe's language and English as they make their case for votes from a high school auditorium.
The audience is a mix of fluent speakers, Hopis whose language and culture were attacked at assimilation-focused boarding schools, Hopis who fear they might be mocked if they stumble over Hopi words, and others who want to learn.
To be in the place of Chairman Tim Nuvangyaoma or his challenger, David Talayumptewa, Hopis must be able to speak and understand Hopi. The rule in the tribal constitution was loosened in 2017 from being fluent, and Nuvangyaoma is pushing to eliminate any language requirement for the top leadership job on the 2,500 square-mile (6,475 square-kilometer) reservation.
He contends nixing it would draw in younger Hopis who were told to leave their homeland, get an education and return to help their people with skills in technology, engineering, law and hydrology but cannot speak Hopi. The reservation is composed of 12 villages in the Arizona high desert and is home to about half of the 14,000 enrolled Hopis. It is completely surrounded by the much larger Navajo Nation.
"We're never going to ignore our culture and traditions, but we are in 2021 now," Nuvangyaoma said in an interview. "There's competition at the state and federal level to seek funding. We need to be a little more aggressive and aware."
Talayumptewa counters the problem lies not with the constitution but in Nuvangyaoma's leadership style, and the solution is in fostering a resurgence of the language that defines Hopis.
"That's his gamble," Talayumptewa said of Nuvangyaoma's push. "It will be an issue in the election. I'm not backing off, and I guess that's my gamble."
The discussion about the language's role in tribal politics inevitably turns into one about identity, and cultural maintenance, sustainability and preservation. Hopi, like other tribes, have fought to maintain their language while the U.S. government tried to eradicate their culture and assimilate them into white society.
Ada Curtis, who is 65 and known by Somi'mana in Hopi, recalled being taught by non-Natives on the reservation and the sickening feeling when she stepped on the bus not knowing English but being scolded and getting her mouth washed out with soap for speaking Hopi.
Several years ago, the neighboring Navajo Nation grappled with a similar issue over language when a presidential candidate was disqualified after he refused to be the first to undergo a fluency test. Voters on the largest Native American reservation relaxed the requirements, essentially eliminating the need for key leaders to speak Navajo.
The White Mountain Apache Tribe in eastern Arizona requires its leader to speak the tribe's language. Other Arizona tribes, including Hualapai and Pascua Yaqui, and the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma do not.
The Hopi reservation has been trending toward English being the dominant language for decades, as fewer parents speak Hopi at home, said Dr. Sheilah Nicholas, or Qötsahonmana, a University of Arizona professor from the Hopi village of Songoopavi. A U.S. Census Bureau study released in 2011 found fewer than a half-million people age 5 and over spoke a Native American language at home.
A small segment of Hopis who live in a community at the base of First Mesa speak Tewa, a language more commonly heard among pueblo tribes along the Rio Grande in New Mexico. The Hopi reservation also includes the Village of Oraibi, the oldest, continuously inhabited settlement in the U.S., dating back around 1,000 years.
The Hopi sense of identity is vulnerable when Hopis live off the remote reservation, are distanced from religious and cultural practices like dry farming and ceremonies in the kiva, and can't speak the language that is part of a spiritual covenant with the creator, Maasaw, Qötsahonmana said.
But focusing only on the speaking ability erases other forms of language, she said.
"There's songs, there's teachings, there's prayer," said Qötsahonmana. "All of those, if you are engaged and involved in those, you are becoming Hopi."
Bernita Duwahoyeoma, whose Hopi name is Siwivensi, pointed to sacrifices made over the years to protect the tribe's language and culture.
Nineteen Hopi men were incarcerated at Alcatraz, off the coast of San Francisco, in 1865 after refusing to send Hopi children to boarding school. In 1701, Hopis who resisted efforts by the Spanish to convert them to Christianity destroyed one of their own villages to ensure continuation of Hopi practices. Hopi men, women and children died, Siwivensi said.
"It's our whole culture at stake," she said. "Just something as simple as language, and there we go as a people. And I'm wondering, which one of these candidates is going to be sincere and listen to what the people are saying from their hearts?"
The winner in Thursday's nonpartisan election cannot single-handedly make changes to the 1934 Hopi constitution, but can shape a proposal through the Tribal Council and put it out for a vote.
Leilani Nish, who volunteered as a moderator for the debate and doesn't speak Hopi yet, said she'd welcome a change to involve the youth.
"It's not a free pass," said the 19-year-old college student. "Whoever is there, regardless, should be able to learn the language. That way, when you're talking (to) and greeting the people, you can greet them in Hopi. It's just more respectful."
Nuvangyaoma, 50, was a fresh face in Hopi politics before he was elected for the four-year term. He has been a firefighter, worked in finance, volunteered for the Hopi radio station and served four prison terms for aggravated drunken driving, experiences he said have helped him connect to Hopis who struggle with substance abuse.
During Saturday's debate, he repeatedly alluded to constitutional reform to give citizens a larger voice in tribal government, to create separation of powers and to modernize the document.
Talayumptewa, a 71-year-old retired U.S. Bureau of Education official, has championed creating a single school district on the reservation. He said the tribal government needs to partner with small businesses and private industries, and reengage with language and culture.
Nuvangyaoma beat Talayumptewa in the 2017 election. Vice chairman candidates Clark Tenakhongva and Craig Andrews run on separate tickets. Turnout generally is low.
Nuvangyaoma and Talayumptewa took questions on public safety, tribal sovereignty, tourism, flooding and illegal trash dumping during the debate at the school in Polacca that has allowed Hopis to get a high school education on their own reservation. A Hopi word at the entrance — nahongvita — encourages students to dig deep and stay strong.
The stage was adorned with gourds, baskets and a colorful painting with corn stalks and Hopis in traditional dress.
The candidates introduced themselves in Hopi but spoke primarily in English. Toward the end of the two-hour debate, Talayumptewa outlined his plan to revitalize the language, which includes immersion programs. Nuvangyaoma dismissed the talk as an empty promise, saying Talayumptewa has had plenty of time to enact change as a three-term council member on the education committee.
Deidra Honyumptewa, 47, said she left the debate feeling hopeful. She and her family recently moved from the Phoenix area back home to the Village of Tewa but do not speak Hopi or Tewa.
"There's a lot of highly educated people my age that are willing to step up to the plate and do what we need to do for our tribe, but that is a barrier for us," she said.
Suspect convicted of murder in death of UNM baseball player -Associated Press
A suspect in the 2019 death of a University of New Mexico baseball player was convicted Tuesday of first-degree murder.
The 2nd Judicial District Court jury began deliberating shortly before noon on the fifth day of the trial before returning with a verdict about 4 1/2 hours later against Darian Bashir.
The 25-year-old Bashir also was found guilty of tampering with evidence for allegedly hiding a license plate in an attempt to conceal his identity from police.
Prosecutors said Bashir is facing life in prison when he's sentenced at a later date.
Bashir was accused of fatally shooting 23-year-old Jackson Weller outside a Nob Hill club.
Prosecutors said Bashir drove to the club after Weller got into a fight with one of his friends. They said Bashir asked Weller about the fight, shot him, then took off in a car parked nearby.
However, Bashir told jurors on Monday that he felt threatened and claimed Weller approached him first.
On Tuesday morning, jurors saw surveillance video of the May 2019 shooting.
Navajo Nation reports 41 more COVID-19 cases, 1 more death -Associated Press
The Navajo Nation on Tuesday reported 41 more COVID-19 cases and one additional death.
The tribe had gone without reporting a coronavirus-related death 25 times in the previous 40 days.
The latest numbers pushed the tribe's totals to 37,586 confirmed COVID-19 cases from the virus since the pandemic began more than a year ago.
The known death toll now is 1,499.
Based on cases from Oct. 22-Nov. 4, the Navajo Department of Health on Monday issued an advisory for 56 communities due to an uncontrolled spread of COVID-19.
All Navajo Nation executive branch employees had to be fully vaccinated against the virus by the end of September or submit to regular testing.
The tribe's reservation is the country's largest at 27,000 square miles (70,000 square kilometers) and covers parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.