'Rust' shooting: What we've learned from new bodycam video

(NewsNation) — Newly released body camera footage from the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office shows the aftermath of the deadly “Rust” movie set shooting involving Alec Baldwin.

Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins died in the Oct. 21 shooting on the New Mexico movie set and director Joel Souza was injured. Baldwin claims he was told the gun was not loaded and only held dummy rounds after a crew member yelled out “cold gun.” The fatal shooting is under investigation.

Body camera video from investigators provides new insight into the tragic shooting.

First interactions between Baldwin and police

The newly released body camera footage shows some of the first interactions between Baldwin and investigators following the shooting. Baldwin appears shaken yet calm during his encounters with officers.

New video shows Alec Baldwin speak to officers after ‘Rust’ shooting

In one of the body camera videos, a detective asks if Baldwin is OK, to which he replies, “No, I’m not, actually.”

Baldwin speaks with investigators. (Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office)

Baldwin cooperated with police. They asked him to come to their station to answer questions.

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“You tell me what to do,” Baldwin said.

Later, police spotted blood on Baldwin's costume, though the actor said it was fake blood. Officers asked that he remain in his costume, and the actor complied.

"Please tell me she's still alive"

Blurred police body camera footage shows director Joel Souza in a hospital bed after he was shot. Moments before doctors removed the bullet lodged in his shoulder, Souza told the officer what happened.

"The armorer handed the actor a gun," Souza said, referring to armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed and Baldwin. "I don't know if she said it was cold or clean, but she handed him a gun and there was a bang — a louder bang than I've heard come from a blank before."

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Souza also described the moment he realized he was hit.

An investigator holds up what appears to be a pill bottle containing the bullet pulled from Souza's body. (Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office)

"Very loud bang, felt like somebody kicked me in the shoulder," Souza said. "Then I was down on my a** and I see the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, with blood coming out of her back."

This all took place before Souza was told Hutchins died from her wound. He asked the officer if he knew if Hutchins was OK, but the officer didn't. About 15 minutes later, while under the influence of medicine, Souza again asked about Hutchins:

Souza: Is Halyna still alive?
Female doctor: We're going to have to find out in just a little bit, OK?
Souza: Please tell me she's still alive.
Male doctor: I'm sure she's fine. She's just not here.
Souza: This is like a movie.
Female doctor: What's your movie about Joel? The one you're filming?
Souza: It's called "Rust."

Rehearsal video shows Baldwin handle gun

Alec Baldwin holding a gun on the set of "Rust" (Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office)

Police released clips from the film showing Baldwin remove a gun from his coat and point it just off-camera. It's unclear if this is the same gun involved in the shooting, but it is not from the same day. Investigators and witnesses said the gun went off when rehearsing a similar scene.

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Baldwin has said he did not pull the trigger and the gun fired on its own.

New Mexico’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau recently fined the production $137,000 and found it was an assistant director, David Halls, who handed the gun to Baldwin, not armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed. The report also found Halls knew of at least two instances when guns went off accidentally on set.

A spokesperson for "Rust" disputed that account, and said the fine would be appealed.

Body camera footage paints picture of set

The shooting happened on Bonanza Creek Ranch, a Santa Fe property depicting an old ranch along the New Mexico foothills. More than 120 films have been created there, dating back to the 1950s.

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On the day of the shooting, the area was covered in yellow crime scene tape with evidence bags scattered on the ground. While talking to police, Baldwin mentioned that the crew had a separate campus to get ready at before traveling to this particular area with the old church where investigators say Baldwin pulled the trigger.

The "Rust" set. (Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office)

The new body camera footage shows evidence bags scattered on the ground. Authorities reported finding hundreds of rounds of ammunition on the set. Among them were reportedly a mix of dummy rounds, blanks and what seemed to be live rounds.

They believe there was “some complacency” in how guns were handled on the movie set. Souza described the gun that Baldwin handled in the old church as an “Old West six-shooter” sort of weapon.

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Oakland School District warns against strikes

OAKLAND, Calif. (KRON) -- The fight over school closures and mergers in Oakland continues - this time with the teacher’s union organizing a strike.

Educators plan on picketing Friday morning. However the Oakland Unified School District superintendent is calling this decision illegal.

Teachers and staff of Oakland schools will be picketing in front of school sites Friday starting at 6:30am. The teachers plan on voicing their opinion over school closures instead of being in class with students.

The Oakland Education Association took to twitter posting their plan for a teacher’s strike on Friday.
Union president Keith Brown says school closures is a racist move.

“Closing schools disproportionally harms Black students, so we are taking on a fight that is a civil rights fight," Brown said.

The district plans on merging and closing schools, starting in June to avoid budget shortfalls and improve the quality of education.

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In a letter to Brown, OUSD superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell demanded a cease and desist from moving forward with the Teachers strike stating:

“Any strike, other withholding of unit member services, or other concerted activity that disrupts the education of District students would be unlawful and an unfair labor practice, a violation of the current collective bargaining agreement between the District and OEA.”

In contrast, Brown says the strike is legal because OUSD is violating an agreement that was made by the district and union after a seven-day strike in 2019.

“An agreement that there must be a year of engagement before closing schools which the district has violated,” Brown added.

Johnson-Trammell’s letter goes on to say that a strike will hurt the district financially and impact students losing out on another day of in-person learning.

Gregorio Gutierrez who teaches sixth and seventh grade at Westlake Middle School says he plans on taking part in the strike. He also plans on picketing at the Port of Oakland Friday afternoon to try to shut down operations there.

“In order to bring about that economic impact on the city and to open people’s eyes to the fact that not only is this unjust, but it’s bigger than just Oakland," Guiterrez said.

A spokesperson from the Port Oakland says the port is aware of the picket and supports free speech. However they stated:

"So many jobs depend upon the Port including truck operators, dock workers, construction workers, warehouse handlers, retailers and everyone all along the supply chain. Therefore, anything that hurts the Port, hurts local jobs.”

OUSD says it’s prepared to take legal action if the union proceeds with the teacher’s strike, including seeking an injunction the California Public Employment Relations Board.

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Jack Dorsey endorses Elon Musk's Twitter deal

SAN FRANCISCO -- Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey endorsed Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter Monday night in a series of tweets. Musk reached a deal to buy the social platform for $44 billion earlier Monday.

"Elon is the singular solution I trust," Dorsey said. "I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness. Elon's goal of creating a platform that us 'maximally trusted and broadly inclusive' is the right one."

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Musk, the CEO of Tesla and one of the world's richest men, offered to buy all outstanding shares of the company at $54.20 a share on April 14. He has said that his acquisition of Twitter is a way to protect free speech.

“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” he said in a statement on Monday.

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Disney in Texas? Judge invites company to move amid DeSantis feud

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- A Texas judge penned the chairman and CEO of Walt Disney recommending the company relocate from Florida to Texas this week amid a feud between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Disney.

"While you, your company, employees, and diverse fans face authoritarian, anti-business, and culture war attacks from extremists in Florida, we in Fort Bend are more ready to welcome the Disney family with thousands of good paying jobs and billions of dollars of investments," Fort Bend County Judge KP George wrote.

DeSantis signed a law that will dissolve Reedy Creek Improvement District, which is a private government controlled by Disney (why does Disney have its own private government in Florida in the first place? You can find the answer to that here).

It's a law many believe is nothing more than retaliation for Disney's public criticism of Florida's signed bill that critics call the "Don't Say Gay" law, which bars teaching sexual orientation and gender identity in schools before fourth grade.

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The Texas judge tweeted directly at DeSantis, calling him a "political extremist" and touting Fort Bend County's diversity. He also followed up with a series of Disney-themed follow-up posts (memes were used).

"I invite you to visit Fort Bend County and see for yourself why our community is the best place for a new Walt Disney World Resort," George said.

Meanwhile, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced he wants to create a Texas version of the "Don't Say Gay" law that aims to give parents more rights when it comes to what their kids learn in school. Patrick said this bill would be a priority in the 2023 session.

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U.S. Senate Candidate Dan O’Dowd details single-issue campaign

(INSIDE CALIFORNIA POLITICS) — Candidate for U.S. Senate Dan O’Dowd joined Inside California Politics co-host Nikki Laurenzo to discuss his single-issue campaign. The tech entrepreneur and founder of Green Hills Software says he has no issues with the job Senator Alex Padilla has done and he has no plans to campaign against Padilla. O’Dowd’s campaign solely surrounds his quest for regulators to ban Tesla’s full self-driving feature.

O’Dowd recently launched a multi-million-dollar ad campaign against Tesla and that feature. He told Laurenzo he has no issues with Tesla, nor Elon Musk, but that his sole issue is with the safety of that technology.

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Praying football coach takes case to Supreme Court

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will tackle a dispute between public school officials and a former high school football coach who wanted to kneel and pray on the field after games.

The case before the justices on Monday involves Joseph Kennedy, a former football coach at Bremerton High School in Bremerton, Washington. For years, the coach would kneel at the center of the field following games and lead students in prayer. The school district eventually learned what he was doing and asked him to stop.

Kennedy's lawyers say the Constitution's freedom of speech and freedom of religion guarantees allow him to pray on the field, with students free to join. But the school district says Kennedy's religious speech interfered with students' own religious freedom rights, could have the effect of pressuring students to pray and opened the district itself to lawsuits. The school district says it tried to work out a solution so Kennedy, who is Christian, could pray privately before or after the game, including on the field after students left, but Kennedy's lawsuit followed.

The case comes to the court at a time when conservative justices make up a majority of the court and have been sympathetic to the concerns of religious individuals and groups, such as groups that brought challenges to coronavirus restrictions that applied to houses of worship.

But cases involving religion can also unite the court. Last year, for example, the court unanimously sided with a Catholic foster care agency that said its religious views prevent it from working with same-sex couples. Already this term in an 8-1 decision the justices ruled for a Texas death row inmate who sought to have his pastor pray aloud and touch him while his execution was carried out.

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The case from Bremerton, meanwhile, has already caught the justices' attention. In 2019 the justices declined to get involved in the case at an earlier stage. But four justices were critical of lower court rulings for the school district, writing that an appeals court's “understanding of the free speech rights of public school teachers is troubling.”

Kennedy started working at Bremerton High School in 2008, and it was his practice at the end of games — after the players and coaches from both teams would meet at midfield to shake hands — to pause and kneel to pray. Kennedy said he wanted to give thanks for what his players had accomplished and for their safety, among other things.

Kennedy initially prayed alone on the 50-yard line at the end of games, but students started joining him and over time he began to deliver a short, inspirational talk with religious references. Kennedy says he never required players to join or asked any student to pray. He also led the team in prayer in the locker room before games, a practice that predated him.

The school district didn't learn of Kennedy's practice until 2015. It told him then that he needed to stop praying with students or engaging in overtly religious activity while still “on duty” as a coach. After Kennedy continued to pray on the field, he was placed on paid leave. His contract expired and he didn't reapply to coach the following year, the school says.

A decision is expected before the court begins its summer recess.

The case is Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, 21-418.

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More than 100 people who went to the same high school now have brain tumors

(NewsNation) —  An investigation is underway at a New Jersey high school that could potentially be linked to what's known as a cancer cluster.

After some digging, a man who attended Colonia High School in Woodbridge, New Jersey, discovered more than 100 former students and staff members had been diagnosed with the same sort of brain tumor diagnosed in his wife, his sister and himself.

Al Lupiano says it’s been a rough road, but he keeps moving forward with hopes of preventing more tragedy. The environmental scientist has been a driving force behind an investigation into Colonia High School, a place where he says 117 people with primary brain tumors and 70 with rare cancers either attended or worked at in prior years.

“My wife and my sister were diagnosed the same day in August, I had been diagnosed many years earlier; the fact that all three of us had a rare primary brain tumor, just started setting off bells and whistles in my head,” Lupiano told NewsNation on Sunday.

“When I started looking into it, I quickly amassed 15 of our classmates with these rare brain tumors. I went on Facebook on March 7, and I asked for the people on Facebook to help me find others. And today we now stand at 117 individuals with primary brain tumors, and another 70 with very rare cancers.”

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Lupiano says he can’t rule out all other possibilities, but adds that when looking at the numbers and where people lived in respect to the school, they did not have anything else in common.

“The only link that I was able to find over and over is all of these individuals as well as teachers and staff said I had taught or I had attended Colonia High School at some point in my life,” Lupiano said.

“Many people chalk these things up to just bad luck. I tend to not see that. I look at coincidences. And when coincidence start adding up, it's no longer a coincidence. It's a pattern. And I saw a pattern developing here. And I said I was going to use very basic science to see if it panned out. And the further I dug into this problem, the more I found patterns emerging.”

When Lupiano’s doctor discovered that both he and his wife had the same type of tumor, he says the odds were like seeing a married couple both being struck by lightning.

“He said he had never seen in his practice, had never read about it in any books, of two individuals that happened to be married to each other having a primary brain tumor such as ours, an acoustic neuroma, which has an incident rate of one in 100,000. The chance of two of us coming together and having this was too much for him to ignore,” Lupiano said.

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Both the school and local government agencies are looking into the concerns, but Lupiano feels discouraged by the hands-off approach he says state and federal agencies have taken so far.

“I'm a little frustrated, because we're getting a lot of warm wishes, and 'We're willing to help' from state and federal agencies. But as of yet, they're not willing to get involved,” Lupiano said. “They're taking more of a wait-and-see approach. And I think the time has come for them to have boots on the ground and actively participate in the sampling of air, water and soil.”

As the days and weeks go on, Lupiano is becoming more and more concerned. His sister, who passed away from impacts of her brain tumor, has children who also attend the school.

“The thought of them having to go through what the rest of us have lived through is just daunting,” Lupiano said. “The sooner we get answers, the sooner we can find out if there’s an ongoing problem, and the better everyone will be for it.”

For his family and everyone involved with Colonia High School, Lupiano is demanding answers and action.

“I think it's time to get federal and state agencies actively involved. Stop arguing if this is a cancer cluster or not, and start getting into the school and determining if there's a problem.”

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