New Details of Negligence Emerge About Deadly Shooting on Alec Baldwin ‘Rust’ Movie Set – Opinion

It was the shot heard ’round the world on October 21 of 2021, when actor Alec Baldwin shot and killed cinemaphotographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the Western film “Rust.” According to Baldwin, he did not pull the trigger and the shooting was an accident. Joel Souza suffered injuries to his shoulder and was also injures.

Now, it’s revealed that prop master Sarah Zachary found live rounds in the prop cart in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.

An interview with the film’s prop master in Santa Fe revealed more details about Halyna HUTCHINS’ death. https://t.co/xwWSmCjfFj

— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) May 31, 2022

In an interview with Santa Fe County Sheriff’s investigators, Zachary said:

I approached the cart with suspicions. The rounds were still in the box so I began shaking them.

She shared her thoughts about what transpired in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.

Joel was screaming as the shots went off. Then the gunshot went off, that’s when I all the sudden saw Hannah in front of it. She turned around and said this wasn’t supposed to happen my whole career is ruined.

“Hannah” is 24-year-old armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was in charge of guns on the set. While one can empathsize with her shock in the moment, it’s still pretty cold-blooded to worry about your career before you even know if anyone died.

It’s hard to understand how this could have happened at all.

The level of negligence here is staggering, and it’s unclear how the live rounds got there in the first place. Is it accidental or did something worse happen?

My friend is a 30-year veteran of special effects and pyrotechnician. He has many questions.

What did the prop house supply rounds look like?

They may have accidentally mixed live rounds with the dummies.

The crew reportedly used the same gun that killed Hutchins for target practice just days before—were the live rounds left over from that?

We know there was negligence on somebody’s part—we just don’t know who.

“What we need from the press that we’re not getting,” he says, “is a chain of custody of the actual round that was fired. From where did this round originate? That is the crucial question.”

Movie sets that involve guns have highly-trained armorers that should be inspecting the guns at every instance they’re touched. Whenever a gun is to be fired in a scene—with blanks, mind you—the assistant director will yell, “fire in the hole!” to the entire cast and crew before the scene is shot. Directorial staff will not allow actors to point guns directly at their co-stars. (Blanks actually have gunpowder in them, but they don’t have projectiles.)

What’s more alarming, gun mishaps had happened before on this production. Investigators were told by Zachary that they had been. Two more timesOn set, guns had been misfired. “The stunt double accidentally discharged the Henry Rifle,” Zachary said. “I don’t know how because he was inside of a cabin. No one else was in there.”

Safety was apparently not considered a top priority for the group with a low budget. Prop master Zachary says that assistant director Dave Halls never posted safety bulletins and that safety meetings “hardly happened.”

“I think we only actually had a safety meeting once or twice and I was just going over the initial of, or what guns we would use for that set,” Zachary said.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mamie Mitchel, the script supervisor who stood next to Halyna Houtchins during the shooting, has ruled that she can sue some producers for punitive damages.

Mitchell’s lawyers alleged the defendants “intentionally undertook a low-budget and cost-cutting scheme that was known to create unsafe conditions for movie production crews that resulted in moving defendants’ failure to ensure basic safety protocols with respect to the hazardous use of firearms.”

The family of the late cinemaphotographer has also filed a wrongful death suit against Baldwin and the film’s producers.

Halyna Hutchins was her name… killed by Alec Baldwin https://t.co/Fs5ltqF5Re pic.twitter.com/K1tWEVwquv

— Trust (@machi52) May 26, 2022

Currently, the case is under investigation. Halyna, who had a family to support and a promising career ahead of her is now dead. It’s clear that she’s gone because of the staggering negligence and the willful ignoring of basic safety protocols. It is illegal to have live rounds on set for a movie, so someone needs to be held responsible.