Members of the film crew working on the set where a cinematographer was shot dead by the actor Alec Baldwin are reported to have been using the gun involved for live target practice.
Sources involved in the production of Rust, a western set in the 19th century, told the celebrity website TMZ that the gun was used for recreational purposes off set, with real ammunition that may have accidentally been left in the weapon when it was handed to Baldwin, 63, as he rehearsed a scene in New Mexico.
Halyna Hutchins, 42, director of photography, died after Baldwin fired the weapon on Thursday. The actor had been told by Dave Halls, an assistant director, that the gun was not loaded.
In a statement to NBC yesterday a former colleague of Halls alleged that he had exercised slack safety oversight on a previous production.
Maggie Goll, a special-effects technician who worked with Halls on the Hulu television series Into the Dark, said: “He did not maintain a safe working environment.”
Halls had to be pushed to follow certain gun safety protocols on the 2019 production, Goll claimed. “The only reason the crew was made aware of a weapon’s presence was because the assistant prop master demanded Dave acknowledge and announce the situation each day. There is absolutely no reason that gun safety should be ignored on set,” she added.
“Sets were almost always allowed to become increasingly claustrophobic, no established fire lanes, exits blocked ... safety meetings were non-existent.”
Police in Santa Fe are investigating the incident that left Hutchins dead and the director of Rust, Joel Souza, 48, injured. Those questioned about the gun and how it came to be loaded with live ammunition instead of blanks include the production’s armourer, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, 24, who was in charge of weapons on the set.
Gutierrez Reed admitted in a podcast in September that she had been nervous about her role as lead armourer on a previous film, The Old Way, starring Nicolas Cage, which was her first project in that role. “I almost didn’t take the job because I wasn’t sure if I was ready but it went really smoothly,” she said.
Baldwin was said to have yelled after the shooting: “Why was I handed a hot gun?” On Saturday he met Hutchins’s husband, Matt, and her nine-year-old son, Andros.