Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office has released a tranche of videos from the movie set where a gun held by actor Alec Baldwin discharged, killing a cinematographer and wounding the film’s director. One video shows Baldwin drawing the revolver and apparently firing it at a camera.
Shot on the set of ‘Rust’ in New Mexico last October, the footage shows Baldwin sitting in a church pew, dressed in a Western costume. He slips his hand inside his jacket and draws a revolver, pointing it toward the camera. Baldwin appears to fire the unloaded weapon in the footage.
Later, during that same scene, a live round was discharged from Baldwin’s gun. The bullet killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza. Baldwin has stated that he did not pull the trigger, and he has not been charged with a criminal offense.
The Sheriff’s Office is currently investigating how live rounds found their way into the gun, which was supposed to contain blanks. In a separate video released on Monday, Souza can be seen talking to police from a hospital bed after the shooting.
“I remember the armorer handed the actor a gun. I don’t know if she said it was cold or clean… but she handed him the gun and then there was a bang, a louder bang,” Souza said, with ‘cold or clean’ being a reference to an unloaded weapon, and the ‘louder bang’ in comparison to a weapon containing blanks.
Back in October, a witness to the shooting told gossip site Hollywood 411 that a shocked Baldwin asked why he was handed a “hot gun” – one containing ammunition – after the incident.
Armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed has since sued the set’s ammo supplier, accusing the company of mixing up live and blank rounds. It remains unclear whether Gutierrez-Reed or another crew member announced that the gun was ‘hot’ or ‘cold’, and whether all involved understood that ‘hot’ typically implies a weapon loaded with either blanks or live rounds.
According to multiple accounts, cast members had complained about the unsafe handling of firearms on set before the fatal shooting.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department turned over a portion of its investigation to the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office in Santa Fe.
“The investigation is not complete,” District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said in a statement. “The Sheriff’s office is still awaiting essential reports and will not be completing their investigation until those reports have been submitted. Once we receive the completed investigation and conduct a thorough and deliberate review of all evidence, a criminal charging decision will be made.”
While Baldwin is not yet facing criminal charges, New Mexico’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau issued a $136,793 fine to the movie’s production company last week for failing to implement adequate firearms safety procedures on set. Hutchins’ husband has also filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Baldwin and the movie’s producers.