‘Am I being charged’: Video of Alec Baldwin interview released in ‘Rust’ shooting investigation
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By Natalie Dreier, Cox Media Group National Content Desk
The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office has released videos of its investigation into the shooting on the set of the film “Rust,” which left one crew member dead and a second wounded.
One of the videos released showed law enforcement officials interviewing actor and producer Alec Baldwin, who fired the prop gun killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza.
The video shows Baldwin making phone calls as he waits for a meeting with investigators.
Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said that the investigation is still open and that he is waiting for the results from the FBI on ballistics and forensic evidence. He is also waiting for fingerprint and DNA results, CNN reported.
Mendoza said his office has also released images of ammunition from the movie set, as well as other reports including screenshots of emails and text messages that show that there were questions about safety by members of the “Rust” crew, USA Today reported.
A conversation between Gutierrez-Reed and Baldwin’s assistant shows that Gutierrez-Reed asked if the actor was “feeling OK” about a scene where Baldwin would be holding a gun.
“Just worried he never tried shooting with the holster at all,” Gutierrez-Reed wrote.
“He has not relayed anything to me on this front,” the assistant replied.
Lane Luper, a camera assistant on the film, quit and wrote to Hutchins and unit production manager Row Walters that safety issues were a challenge, including the enforcement of COVID-19 enforcement, USA Today reported.
“The obstacles that we overcome every day on a western should be that of logistics and that alone,” Luper wrote to the pair. “Unfortunately the challenge that I face each day in this picture is safety.”
Hutchins’ family filed a lawsuit against “Rust” producers, including Baldwin, for wrongful death, alleging that producers “committed major breaches of industry protocols” that “led to the senseless and tragic death of Halyna Hutchins.”
Baldwin told ABC News in December that he had cocked the gun, “but did not pull the trigger.” He said he felt sadness but not guilt over the incident. He also said he did not know a live round was loaded into the gun.
Baldwin’s attorney, Luke Nikas, said in a statement that the release of the videos by the sheriff’s department corroborates what his client said after the shooting happened, CNN reported.
The production company overseeing the film, Rust Movie Productions LLC, was fined $137,000 last week by the New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Bureau for failures violating on-set safety protocols, The Associated Press reported.