AFFIDAVIT: PROP GUN NOT FULLY EXAMINED

Before he handed a revolver that he had declared “cold” to actor Alec Baldwin on the set of the film “Rust” last week, Dave Halls, an assistant director on the film, told a detective he should have inspected each round in each chamber, according to an affidavit that was released Wednesday. But he did not.

“He advised he should have checked all of them, but didn’t,” according to an affidavit, which was signed by Detective Alexandria Hancock of the Santa Fe County Sheriff ’s office.

It turned out that the gun was not “cold.” The revolver, a .45 Long Colt, contained a live round, Sheriff Adan Mendoza of Santa Fe County said at a news conference Wednesday. The gun went off as Baldwin rehearsed a scene Thursday, killing the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, 42, and wounding its director, Joel Souza, 48.

The sheriff said that the “lead projectile” that Baldwin had fired from the gun had been recovered from the director’s shoulder and added that it was apparently the same round that had killed Hutchins. Asked if it was an actual bullet that had been fired — and not a blank — he said, “We would consider it a live round, a bullet, live, because it did fire from the weapon and obviously caused the death of Ms. Hutchins and injured Mr. Souza.”

Mendoza said that investigators believe they recovered more live rounds on the film’s set at Bonanza Creek Ranch and that they would be sending some of the ammunition they seized to the FBI crime lab for analysis.

It was still unclear why there was any live ammunition on the set — it is generally forbidden on film sets — and how a live round came to be in the gun that Baldwin was handed.

The Santa Fe County district attorney, Mary Carmack-Altwies, said at the news conference that the inquiry was continuing and that criminal charges were still possible.