Disgraced actor Alec Baldwin has maintained for months that he did not fire the gun that fatally shot a member of the crew when they were filming in New Mexico. However, fresh forensic data can present a different picture.
The event happened in October as Baldwin was practicing a scene for the upcoming Western film Rust on the outskirts of Santa Fe. The actor was rehearsing drawing a pistol and aiming it at the camera at the time. When the gun went off, a bullet hit and wounded the film’s director, Joel Souza, as well as the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins.
In a winter prime-time interview with ABC News, Baldwin refuted accusations that he fired the shot. “Never,” he declared, “would he point a gun at someone and pull the trigger.”
“Someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is,” Baldwin added. “But I know it’s not me.”
The FBI recently completed its investigation and delivered a report to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office, which is in charge of the case. Officials discovered that the prop weapon could not be fired without pulling the trigger.
The gun in question, when the hammer was clocked at the one-fourth and half positions, “could not be induced to fire without a pull of the trigger,” the FBI report states.
The weapon “could not be forced to fire without a pull of the trigger while the working internal components were intact and functional,” according to the ballistic analysis when it was fully cocked.
In a statement, Baldwin’s lawyer called the FBI’s findings “misconstrued,” adding that the gun in question was in “poor condition.”
Now, Medical examiners in the US state of New Mexico have determined that actor Alec Baldwin’s fatal film-set gunshot of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was an accident.
The conclusion was made by the Office of the Medical Investigator in New Mexico, and it was made public on Monday (local time), following the conclusion of an autopsy and a review of police report data.
While reviewing the most recent reports and awaiting the phone records from Baldwin’s counsel, prosecutors have not yet determined whether to file charges in the case.
