Murder on the set: live bullets in Alec Baldwin's gun. Here's how it went
Death of Halyna Hutchins: the developments of the case
In the gun with which actor Alec Baldwin killed the director of photography and seriously injured the director of the western "Rust" were live bullets. The US media reported this on the basis of police documents. The gun was handed to the actor by an assistant who told him it was safe to use. Both the assistant and the actor didn't know the ammunition was real. Meanwhile, Rust Movie Productions, the film's production company, also launched an internal investigation after the death of the director of photography.
The statements of the assistant
According to a first affidavit based on the reconstruction of the Santa Fe County sheriff, the assistant director who had provided Baldwin with the gun had passed it to him as a "cold weapon," meaning no bullets. The five-page statement leaves many questions unanswered but makes it clear that not only Baldwin but also the assistant thought it was an unloaded gun. A weapons specialist also enters the investigation who was present on the set and allegedly witnessed the tragedy and who would examine the weapon immediately after the shot.
The disturbing precedent
The weapon used by Baldwin on the set in Santa Fe had apparently been shot by accident in the past. This was reported by well-informed sources to the Los Angeles Times. According to sources, standard firearms safety protocols in the film industry have not been followed with the necessary rigor. Last Saturday, the replacement for Alec Baldwin, the sources add, had fired two shots with the same gun which, even in that case, was reported as "cold", ie without ammunition. "There should have been an investigation," a member of the crew told the US news outlet, "there were no security meetings. There was no guarantee it wouldn't happen again. All they wanted was to hurry. , quickly, quickly ".
The reconstruction of the drama
Meanwhile, a more precise reconstruction of what happened, reported by the Los Angeles Times, filters. Baldwin, according to the newspaper, was preparing to shoot the scene in which he pulls a pistol from a holster. Crew members had already shouted "cold gun" on set, while the filmmaking team was aligning camera angles and had yet to retreat to the on-set area where the crew gathers to watch the footage from afar via a monitor. Instead, the camera operator was on a cart with a monitor and was checking the shots. Hutchins was also looking at the monitor resting on the operator's shoulder, as was the film's director, Joel Souza, who was crouched right behind her.
Baldwin pulled the pistol from its holster and fired once without incident, but when he repeated the action, the shot went right in the direction of Hutchins, the director and the operator. According to the story, the bullet, after having grazed the operator, hit Hutchins and then Souza.
The person in charge of guarding the firearms is Hannah Gutierrez Reed, 24-year-old daughter of veteran gunsmith Thell Reed, and she recently finished shooting her first film as a gunsmith, 'The Old Way', a western starring Nicolas Cage.
