On Monday — roughly six months after actor and producer Alec Baldwin fatally shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the New Mexico set of “Rust” — the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office released dozens of videos and documents from their investigation.
Interviews with multiple members of the “Rust” crew paint an hour- by-hour picture of a cascade of bad decisions that created a chaotic set on which a lead bullet was put into a prop gun.
The sheriff’s office’s investigation into the shooting, which also wounded director Joel Souza, remains open. No charges have yet been filed in the case, though local authorities have been scrutinizing the actions of Baldwin, as well as assistant director Dave Halls and armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed. Numerous civil lawsuits have also been filed regarding the shooting.
The trove of files released Monday include dash cam footage from deputies and detectives arriving at the Bonanza Creek Ranch movie set after the shooting, set videos, crime scene photos, witness interviews and a 204-page case report summarizing the investigation.
Brian Panish, a lawyer for the Hutchins family, said in a statement that he was surprised by the sheriff’s office’s decision to release such a large amount of evidence while the investigation remains ongoing.
“For this reason, we are not going to comment on the material released except to say we hope the press will exercise discretion in how they use the graphic images and videos of the fatal events of Oct 21, 2021,” Panish said.
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New footage from the set of “Rust” taken sometime before the shooting shows Baldwin drawing a revolver from a holster in his jacket and brandishing the gun toward the camera. The footage appears to have been filmed in the Bonanza Creek Ranch church where Hutchins was fatally shot.
New footage from the set of “Rust” shows actor and producer Alec Baldwin drawing a revolver from a holster in his jacket and brandishing the gun toward the camera. The footage appears to have been shot in the Bonanza Creek Ranch church where cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot.
Immediately after the shooting, a slew of law enforcement officers and first responders arrived at Bonanza Creek Ranch.
One of the responding officers, Deputy Nicholas LaFleur, soon learned that Alec Baldwin fired the gun, and he asked for help to find the actor who was standing about 20 feet away, making a call on his cellphone. “I was the one holding the gun,” Baldwin tells him. “What do you need?”
Baldwin then described how the assistant director, Halls, handed him the gun.
Another video depicts Gutierrez Reed responding to questions about her job. “I’m the armorer or at least I was,” she says.
In body cam footage from after the shooting, Gutierrez Reed spoke with Det. Alexandria Hancock as they walked to the bathroom.
“Welcome to the worst day of my life,” Gutierrez Reed says. “I can’t believe Alec Baldwin was holding the gun. That’s so f—ed.”
In this video, a group of law enforcement officers tries to piece together how events in the church played out.
They also discussed why there were so many bullet casings on the ground.
Law enforcement discusses why there are casings on the ground.
In this video, Alec Baldwin, Dave Halls and other crew members discussed the weapons involved in the shooting and how the two victims were injured. Halls demonstrated the shake test typically used to make sure bullets were actual dummies. A crew member says it sounded like it might have been an actual live round, and Baldwin expresses concern for Hutchins.
Baldwin, Halls and other crew members struggle to make sense of the tragedy, with Halls explaining to script supervisor Mamie Mitchell why dummy rounds were used and how a lethal projectile might have ended up in Baldwin’s gun.
“It got mixed up in the dummy loads,” Halls tells Mitchell. Minutes later, the somber crew watches as a helicopter with Hutchins takes off for the flight to Albuquerque, nearly 50 miles away. The ranch grows quiet.
Baldwin sat for an interview with Santa Fe County Sheriff’s deputies after being transported back to their office about 10 miles from the ranch. During the conversation, the actor is alarmed when he’s shown an image of the projectile that penetrated both Hutchins and director Joel Souza.
“That’s a bullet,” Baldwin says, looking at the picture. “I’m so sickened by this. That a bullet passed through this girl’s body. And she’s in critical condition in the hospital right now, and I fired the gun. And you don’t think I feel really s— about that? I do.” Toward the end of the meeting, the deputies inform Baldwin that Hutchins has died of her injuries. He reacts by sitting in stunned silence, his hand over his mouth, before saying he would like to go call his wife.
Times staff writer Michael Finnegan and Times video staff members Cody Long, Claire Collins, Jackeline Luna, Lauren Flynn, Mark Potts and Erik Himmelsbach-Weinstein contributed to this report.
Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, one of American Cinematographer’s Rising Stars, was killed on the set of ‘Rust.’ Here’s everything we know so far.
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