Attorneys for the late cinematographer Halyna Hutchins’ family revealed Tuesday that they had filed a wrongful-death case in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, following her death on the set of “Rust.”
Alec Baldwin, an actor and producer, is one of the accused, as he was the one who was holding the gun when it went off in October, killing Hutchins.
Lawyers for the Hutchins estate made the announcement Tuesday at a news conference in Los Angeles, where attorney Brian Panish said Baldwin and others are named defendants “responsible for the safety on the set and whose reckless behavior in cost cutting led to the senseless and tragic death of Halyna Hutchins.”
The statement released says,
“Everyone’s hearts and thoughts remain with Halyna’s family as they continue to process this unspeakable tragedy. We continue to cooperate with the authorities to determine how live ammunition arrived on the ‘Rust’ set in the first place. Any claim that Alec was reckless is entirely false. He, Halyna and the rest of the crew relied on the statement by the two professionals responsible for checking the gun that it was a ‘cold gun’ – meaning there is no possibility of a discharge, blank or otherwise.”
“This protocol has worked on thousands of films, with millions of discharges, as there has never before been an incident on a set where an actual bullet harmed anyone,” the statement continued. “Actors should be able to rely on armorers and prop department professionals, as well as assistant directors, rather than deciding on their own when a gun is safe to use.”
In legal documents, obtained by ET, the estate says Hutchins
“deserved to live” and claims that the “defendants had the power to prevent her death if they had only held sacrosanct their duty to protect the safety of every individual on a set where firearms were present instead of cutting corners on safety procedures where human lives were at stake, rushing to stay on schedule and ignoring numerous complaints of safety violations.”
Some of the cost-cutting measures the estate claims Baldwin and production undertook included “hiring inexperienced and unqualified armorers or weapons masters, requiring the film’s armorer to split time as assistant props master, establishing and aggressively adhering to unreasonably rushed production schedules, and hiring unqualified and inexperienced crew and staff that were responsible for safety during the production.”
“guns on the Rust Production had been discharged in an unsafe manner while loaded with ammunition”
Hutchins’ estate claims that
“Baldwin and the others involved in the Rust Production did not follow industry protocols and basic gun safety rules, a live round containing a .45 caliber bullet was in the revolver held by Defendant Baldwin at the time of the shooting, ready to be fired, and Defendant Baldwin caused that bullet to be discharged directly at Ms. Hutchins.”
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