Inquiry says Baldwin pulled trigger in fatal shooting on set
Gun that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the Rust movie set couldn’t have been fired without someone pulling the trigger, says the FBI. The actor insists he didn’t.
The gun that killed a cinematographer on the set of a film starring Alec Baldwin could not have been fired without someone pulling the trigger, according to a forensic FBI report into the shooting.
Baldwin, 64, shot and killed Halyna Hutchins, 42, during a rehearsal for a scene on the set of Rust in Santa Fe, New Mexico, last year. Joel Souza, the film’s director, was wounded in the incident.
Baldwin, who produced and starred in the film, has always stated that he believed he was handling a “cold gun” that was not loaded with live ammunition when the weapon went off. The actor has insisted that he did not pull the trigger.
The FBI report, obtained by ABC News, appears to contradict that claim, however. The agency conducted accidental discharge tests on the .45 Colt single action revolver and determined that the weapon could not be discharged without the trigger being pulled.
The forensic report was passed to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s office this month as part of the criminal investigation into the shooting. The report has been reviewed by the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator, which has classified Hutchins’s death as an accident.
The months-long investigation has exposed a string of firearms safety failures on the set of Rust, however. It found that production managers had failed on two accidental misfires before the fatal shooting and found that complaints about gun safety failures by other crew members had gone unheeded.
The Times
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