The family of the late Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins filed a wrongful-death suit against embattled actor Alec Baldwin on Tuesday, and released an animated video that recreated the fatal on-set shooting.
The video, titled “Killing of Halyna Hutchins on the set of ‘Rust,'” shows animated computer-generated figures of Alec Baldwin and other Rust crew members reinacting the moments that led to the fatal shooting on October 21 last year.
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The footage shows a man, presumably Rust assistant director David Halls, handing a firearm to Baldwin, who then puts it inside his coat pocket and takes a seat a pew inside the church.
The video then pans over to four masked crew members gathered around a camera that is facing Baldwin.
Then, the actor can be seen suddenly pulling the firearm from his coat, pointing it in the direction of the crew members, and pulling the trigger, sending Hutchins stumbling back, and injuring the film’s director, Joel Souza.
The crew members are then seen gathering around Hutchins, helping her to the ground between the aisle of the church pews.
A longer video played by Hutchins’ lawyers during a press conference on Tuesday shows a harrowing moment depicting the bullet searing through the cinematographer’s chest, causing what appears to be internal bleeding, before exiting her body and hitting Souza.
“There are many people culpable, but Mr. Baldwin was the person holding the weapon that, but for him shooting it, she would not have died. So clearly he has a significant portion of the liability, but there are others,” Hutchins’ family lawyer Brian Panish said at the press conference.
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“The lawsuit names Alec Baldwin and others, who are responsible for the safety on the set, and whose reckless behavior and cost-cutting led to the senseless and tragic death of Halyna Hutchins,” Panish said.
The lawsuit also accuses Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed of being unqualified for the job, the film’s assistant director Dave Halls, who told an investigator that he did not check all of the rounds in the gun before handing it to Baldwin, and Seth Kenney, who supplied guns and ammunition for the film, reports New York Times.
“I think it’s clear what happened,” the Hutchins family lawyer added. “[Baldwin] had the gun, he says he pulled the hammer back, it fired, and she was killed. The experts will look at it and make any determinations, but we don’t think this was caused by any defect in the weapon.”
As for Baldwin, he has already returned to work. The Departed actor flew to Britain where he posted a video of himself walking down the streets of the southern England town of Alton in East Hampshire.
Moreover, despite Baldwin’s claims that he has been cooperating with police investigators, the actor refused to hand over his cell phone for weeks, finally surrendering the device in the middle of January.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.