Rubin: Metro Detroit witness in trial tied to shooting by Alec Baldwin is pleased with role

Michael Primeau, of Hazel Park, figures he was maybe 5% responsible for the guilty verdict in the first trial tied to the Alec Baldwin on-set shooting, but he couldn't swear to it on a Bible.

One thing he's certain of, though, is how he wound up on the witness stand in Santa Fe, New Mexico, last week in a case that drew the attention of most every outlet from Court TV to Variety:

"The magic of Google."

Primeau, 32, said he wondered the same thing anyone else logically might when special prosecutor Kari Morrissey reached out across two time zones. Why ask Primeau Forensics in Rochester Hills to scour unreleased movie footage for details about the ammunition in Baldwin's bandolier? Why not the friendly local FBI lab?

Basically, Morrissey told him, she wanted to start fresh. By the time the trial of weapons supervisor Hannah Gutierrez-Reed began, it had been a convoluted two years and four months since the replica .45 Colt revolver in Baldwin's hand that was supposed to be loaded with dummies spat a bullet on the set of a movie called "Rust," killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.

Beyond that, Primeau Forensics has the sort of track record that leaps out in an internet search.

Michael's quasi-retired dad, Ed, has consulted on everything from the Trayvon Martin case to whether that was really former Warren Mayor Jim Fouts saying disparaging things about minorities and developmentally disabled people on leaked recordings. (The answer was close to undoubtedly, though it didn't stop Fouts from getting reelected.)

As for Michael, "this is probably my first high-profile case I can talk about, where I'm not bound under confidentiality," he said.

He's free to discuss how much time it took to prepare for a withering cross-examination that didn't happen, whether he'll be back in New Mexico when Baldwin goes on trial in July, and why the jury's quick return with a verdict of "guilty" brought him no particular satisfaction.

Setting the stage

Baldwin, 65, wore multiple hats in the Western, including actor and producer. Gutierrez-Reed, 26, had two roles: props assistant and armorer, that being the Hollywood term for the person in charge of weaponry.

Baldwin claims he did not pull the trigger of the gun. Experts have said it would not have fired without a squeeze of his finger.

What's undisputed is that as he was practicing a cross-draw, with the two victims only steps away watching a monitor, a bullet that should have not been on the set struck Hutchins in the chest and then Souza in the shoulder.

Involuntary manslaughter charges against Baldwin were dropped in April 2023. Two months ago, a grand jury indicted him again.

Primeau hasn't been told whether his services will be required for that trial, but he suspects not. "That case," he said, "is more about the firing of the firearm."

Gutierrez-Reed's was about the ammunition, and the sloppiness with it throughout the first two weeks of filming on a three-week project in a ghost town called Bonanza City.

Safety problems had been cited in others' testimony before Primeau took the stand March 4 as one of the prosecution's last witnesses.

His job was to drive the final nail in a largely constructed coffin.

Too much silver, too little brass

A dummy round approximates the weight of a bullet, but contains no propellant or explosive charge. The color of the primer, or base, of the dummies on "Rust" was brass.

The color of the primers of the actual bullets was silver. Primeau was tasked with determining which colors were visible in the footage from previous days, notably in the ammo belt across Baldwin's chest ― a more difficult challenge than it might seem.

Across 60 to 80 hours of investigating and experimenting, he said, he learned how each of the cameras captured light and color, and "whether they could change those values through concepts like compression."

Part of his process involved chroma subsampling, described on one video networking company's website as "a type of compression that reduces the color information in a signal in favor of luminance data in order to reduce bandwidth usage without significantly affecting picture quality."

Knowing what that means and how it applies helped Primeau collect a $15,000 fee, a number brought out in questioning by the defense to suggest that damning testimony was purchased.

Subtract expenses from the total, Primeau noted, divide by the number of hours he worked, and he earned far less than the hourly rates of the junior associates at a big-city law firm.

What he concluded was that "there were large gaps in various places where the armorist, the expert, was not maintaining protocol."

In short: Wrong rounds, wrong places, and not just on the day of the shooting.

Preparation and satisfaction

Primeau had braced for a long and brutal cross-examination.

"I had pages and pages prepared," he said, and he had asked several colleagues to pepper him the way a rabid defense attorney would.

As it turned out, the questioning was mild. He was off the witness stand in less than half an hour total, and when the defense presented its case, it did not call a competing expert to dispute his assessment.

The jury needed only two hours to return its verdict of guilty. Gutierrez-Reed faces up to 18 months in prison when she is sentenced.

Primeau is pleased, he said, but that has nothing to do with the outcome of the case.

"My satisfaction," he explained, "came from making all the technical components clear, educating the jury that these were the things they needed to know and understand when they were going to make their decision."

As for "Rust," it started filming again in April 2023 and finished early the next month.

Baldwin plays an aging outlaw named Harland Rust who comes out of hiding in 1880s Kansas to help his 13-year-old grandson.

The boy has been sentenced to hang for murder, but he says it was an accident.

Reach Neal Rubin at NARubin@freepress.com.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Local forensic expert plays role in trial tied to Alec Baldwin shooting