Rust shooting: prosecutor rejects conspiracy theory of sabotage plot
The prosecutor investigating the fatal shooting on the Rust film set in New Mexico last month has rejected conspiracy theories launched by defense attorneys of crew members suggesting that the death of the cinematographer could have been the result of a mysterious sabotage plot.
“We do not have any proof,” the Santa Fe county district attorney, Mary Carmack-Altwies, told ABC News in an interview broadcast on Wednesday morning.
“Do you believe sabotage is a possibility?” a reporter asked, to which Carmack-Altwies firmly replied: “No.”
The tragedy occurred on a desert western film set in New Mexico when the actor Alec Baldwin, also a producer on the project, unwittingly fired a loaded gun while rehearsing a scene and the shot killed the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, and injured the director, Joel Souza, who was standing behind her.
Baldwin was handed a weapon by the assistant director, Dave Halls, who indicated it was “cold” or safe to use, court documents have stated.
Police have been investigating the shooting in conjunction with Carmack-Altwies’ office and the tragedy has also sparked fierce debate in Hollywood about working conditions for crew on TV and film sets.
Carmack-Altwies said that if it were to be found that someone did indeed sabotage the film set, then her office would be looking at “certainly a higher level of murder charge than we would potentially be looking at with the facts we have now”.
Last week, Jason Bowles, attorney of the set’s 24-year-old weapons armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed, said someone may have sabotaged the film set, noting: “I believe that somebody who would do that would want to sabotage the set, want to prove a point, want to say they’re disgruntled, they’re unhappy.”
He added: “We know there was a live round in a box of dummy rounds that shouldn’t have been there … We have a time frame … in which the firearms at times were unattended, so there was opportunity to tamper with this scene.”
Carmack-Altwies raised concerns with “many levels of failures” on the movie set, adding that it was her understanding that more than one live round was found on set, without disclosing the exact number.
“We still don’t know how they got on the set and how they got there I think will be one of the most important factors going into a [criminal] charging decision,” she said.
Carmack-Altwies also confirmed that she knew the identity of the person who loaded the gun but refused to provide details. Additionally, she contested claims made by Lisa Torraco, attorney for the assistant director, who said that Halls did not take the gun from the prop cart and hand it to Baldwin.
“Yes, that does seem to be the case,” Carmack-Altwies said in response to whether it is her belief that Halls handed the pistol to the actor.
Since the shooting, New Mexico film industry workers have been demanding better film training and tougher gun regulations on production sets.
A dozen producers, set managers, crew members and actors interviewed by Reuters said the industry growth has vastly outstripped the state’s supply of trained crew, putting set safety at risk.
Up to a third of staff in some departments on high-budget productions can be inexperienced or on their first movie, according to a senior crew member and two set managers.
Lower-budget productions such as Rust scramble to find trained staff as large companies such as Netflix and Universal, both with New Mexico production hubs, hire crews of up to 300, two producers said.
New Mexico demands no special training or permits for armorers to manage real firearms.