Alec Baldwin spoke on Saturday for the first time in front of television cameras since the tragedy, which occurred on October 21. Unsurprisingly, he announced that the American Western Rust would never see the light of day, the shooting having been bereaved by the death of the director of photography, Halyna Hutchins. The actor killed her with an accidental gunshot during a rehearsal.
“Sometimes accidents happen on film sets, but nothing like that. There was a one in a trillion chance of that happening.” he lamented, while recalling how affected he was.
No arrests have been made at this stage and investigations are continuing into the circumstances of the tragedy that occurred at the Bonanza Creek ranch, where Alec Baldwin was filming a western film set in the 19th century. He was handling a Colt 25 that had been presented to him as unloaded and harmless by assistant director Dave Halls when the shot went off, killing Halyna Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza in the shoulder.
Since the crash, calls for better gun control on Hollywood sets have grown, a change Alec Baldwin has expressed his “extreme interest”. He said he was unable to say when he could work on a set with weapons again. “We were a very, very tight-knit team shooting a movie together and this horrible event happened,” he added.
Assistant director Dave Halls acknowledged that he should have checked the gun before rehearsal, but didn’t. According to several witnesses, Halls told Baldwin that the gun was “cold”, which means in movie jargon that the gun is empty and harmless.
Ammunition appraised by the police
At a press conference, prosecutor Mary Carmack-Altwies did not rule out possible criminal charges against Alec Baldwin, who is also on the list of producers of Rust. But she insisted that it was too early to establish the responsibilities of each and to formulate the charges which could result from it.
Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the gunsmith employed on the film, claimed for her part that she had never been aware of the presence of “live ammunition” on set. And so logically, this accident would never have happened “if live ammunition had not been introduced” on the set, underline his lawyers in a statement sent to AFP, rejecting any responsibility of their client in the death of Halyna Hutchins. “Hannah has no idea where this live ammunition came from,” they assured.
The searches carried out on the set resulted in the seizure of 500 cartridges, dummy or blank, among which also seem to be real ammunition, indicated the sheriff of the county of Santa Fe, Adan Mendoza, who supervises the investigation. This ammunition must be appraised by the scientific police, as well as the fatal bullet, which ended up in the shoulder of director Joel Souza.
Live ammunition is totally prohibited on set by the very strict rules in force in the film industry, precisely to avoid this kind of accident. “I think there was a certain sloppiness on this set», also scolded Sheriff Mendoza.