Criminal charges have not been ruled out in the fatal shooting by actor Alec Baldwin on the set of his western film, Rust, last week, the Santa Fe County district attorney reportedly said on Tuesday.
“We haven’t ruled out anything,” district attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies told the New York Times. “Everything at this point, including criminal charges, is on the table.”
On Thursday, Baldwin was rehearsing with a gun that he had been told did not contain live ammunition. Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally wounded and director Joel Souza was also wounded.
Carmack-Altwies added that she takes issue with the firearm used being described as a “prop gun,” saying that the terminology could give people the wrong idea that it was not a real gun.
“It was a legit gun,” Carmack-Altwies said. “It was an antique-era appropriate gun.”
The district attorney added that “there were an enormous amount of bullets on this set, and we need to find out what kinds they were.”
Carmack-Altwies told NYT the investigation is focusing on ballistics in an attempt to determine what kind of round was in the gun that killed Hutchins, and who had put the ammunition in the gun.
Detectives reportedly said they recovered three revolvers, spent casings, and ammunition while searching the set. The rounds were found in boxes, loose, and in a fanny pack.
Carmack-Altwies said that detectives are still interviewing people who were on the set, and that “it’s probably weeks, if not months, of follow-up investigation that we’re going to need to get to the point of charging.”
On Thursday, authorities were dispatched to the New Mexico set of Rust following a 911 call in which script supervisor Mamie Mitchell told a dispatcher “our director and our camerawoman” were “accidentally shot on a move set by a prop gun.”
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The gun Baldwin used was one of three that the film’s head armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed had set on a cart outside a church where a scene was being rehearsed. The cart was left outside “due to Covid-19 restrictions,” reports NYT.
Assistant director Dave Halls grabbed one of the firearms off the cart and handed it Baldwin, who was rehearsing inside the church. Halls reportedly yelled, “cold gun” — indicating the firearm did not contain any rounds of ammunition in it.
Baldwin then rehearsed a scene that involved pointing the gun toward the camera lens when the gun fired.
Baldwin first addressed the incident on Friday morning in a two-part statement on Twitter, writing, “There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Halyna Hutchins.”
The actor added that he was “fully cooperating with the police,” and was “in touch with her husband.”
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