Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza, left, and Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies exit the sheriff's office to address the media at a news conference in Santa Fe, N.M. Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021. New Mexico authorities said Wednesday they have recovered a lead projectile believed to have been fired from the gun used in the fatal movie-set shooting. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
By Morgan Lee, Susan Montoya Bryan, and Cedar Attanasio
Investigators said Wednesday that there was “some complacency” in how weapons were handled on the movie set where Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed a cinematographer and wounded another person, but it's too soon to determine whether charges will be filed.
Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza noted that 500 rounds of ammunition — a mix of blanks, dummy rounds and live rounds — were found while searching the set of the Western “Rust.”
“Obviously I think the industry has had a record recently of being safe. I think there was some complacency on this set, and I think there are some safety issues that need to be addressed by the industry and possibly by the state of New Mexico,” Mendoza told a news conference nearly a week after the shooting.
Authorities also confirmed there was no footage of the shooting, which happened during a rehearsal.
Investigators believe Baldwin’s gun fired a single live round that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza.
Detectives have recovered a lead projectile they believe the actor fired last week. Testing is being done to confirm whether the projectile taken from Souza’s shoulder was fired from the same long Colt revolver used by Baldwin. The FBI will help with ballistics analysis.
Two other guns were seized, including a single-action revolver that may have been modified and a plastic gun that was described as a revolver, officials said.
Souza, who was standing behind Hutchins, told investigators there should never be live rounds present near the scene.
“We suspect that there were other live rounds, but that’s up to the testing. But right now, we’re going to determine how those got there, why they were there because they shouldn’t have been,” Mendoza said.
District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said investigators cannot say yet whether it was negligence or by whom. She called it a complex case that will require more research and analysis.
“It will take many more facts, corroborated facts, before we can get to that criminal negligence standard,” she said.
Investigators said they planned to follow up on reports of other incidents involving misfires with guns on the set.
The shooting has baffled Hollywood professionals and prompted calls to better regulate firearms on sets or even ban them in the age of seamless computer-generated imagery. Court records say that an assistant director grabbed the gun from a cart and indicated the weapon was safe by yelling “cold gun.”
The film’s weapons specialist or armorer, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, said she checked dummy bullets on the day of the shooting to ensure that none were “hot” rounds. She also told a detective that while the guns used for filming were locked up during a crew lunch break, ammunition was left on a cart unsecured, according to a search warrant released Wednesday ahead of the news conference.
Gutierrez Reed told a detective that no live ammo was ever kept on the set.
Assistant director David Halls, who handed the gun to Baldwin before the shooting, said Gutierrez Reed typically opened the hatch of the gun and spun the drum, though he couldn’t recall if she did that before the shooting. He said he only remembered seeing three rounds in the gun, according to the warrant.
After the shooting, Halls took the gun to Gutierrez and said he saw five rounds in the gun, at least four of them were “dummy” rounds indicated by a hole on the side and a cap on the round. Halls said there was also a casing in the gun that did not have the cap and did not have the hole indicating it was a dummy, the warrant said.
Halls "advised the incident was not a deliberate act,” according to the warrant, which was issued Wednesday in order to search a truck that was used on the set.
Baldwin, 63, who is known for his roles in “30 Rock,” “The Departed” and “The Hunt for Red October” along with his impression of then-President Donald Trump on “Saturday Night Live,” has described the killing as a “tragic accident.”
The gun Baldwin used was one of three that the armorer had placed on a cart outside the building where a scene was being rehearsed, according to court records.
The production of “Rust” was beset by workplace disputes from the start in early October. Hours before the shooting, several camera crew members walked off the set amid discord over working conditions, including safety procedures.
Baldwin in his role as actor appeared unlikely to be held criminally or civilly liable for the tragedy. As a producer, however, he is among a long list of associates on the film who could face some sort of liability.
Rust Movie Productions, the production company, says it is cooperating with authorities and conducting its own internal review of procedures with the production shut down.
On this episode of Cheddar Innovates: CEO of Achieve Life Sciences discusses a new plant-based compound that's being used to fight nicotine addiction; President & CEO OF DiaMedica Therapeutics explains a new ischemic stroke treatment option that expands the window for effective therapy for stroke patients; Cheddar gets a look at Curiosity Stream's 'Asteroid Rush.'
Catching you up on today's entertainment headlines with the Tribeca Film Festival has kicked off in NYC, "Black Adam," starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson dropped its first full trailer, the musical "Come From Away" based on a true story set during 9/11 will be closing on Broadway this October, and more.
Survivors of Larry Nassar, including Olympian Simone Biles, are seeking $1 billion in damages from the FBI due to its failure to investigate the former gymnastics team doctor convicted of committing years of serial sexual abuse of minors. Jack Queen, a senior reporter at Law360, joined Cheddar News to break down the legal grounds of this case. "This is one of the biggest black eyes that the Bureau has faced in generations, quite frankly, and the FBI has taken full responsibility and admitted that it completely botched this investigation," he said. "So, there's a lot of pressure to settle."
The Elevate Prize Foundation is donating $10,000 to different grassroots organizations based on a theme every month to help scale their work, focusing on a different theme each time. Upcoming prizes will help uplift an organization supporting the LGBTQ community and one mobilizing to help end gun violence. The foundation's CEO Carolina Garcia Jayaram joined Cheddar to discuss the initiative and why it's important to uplift these grassroots organizations. "We are identifying social entrepreneurs around the world to help them scale their work. but the ultimate purpose of that is to create the first-ever fanbase for good," she said. "We're trying to make good famous and by inspiring people to think about the role they can play in doing good in the world."
With real estate being a largely male-dominated industry, Stephanie Shojaee, vice president and chief marketing officer at development company Shoma Group, joined Cheddar News to discuss how she took on the gender gap for women to achieve leadership roles, starting at her own company. “It's been very important to teach all the women that work here, especially the younger ones, that they shouldn't change themselves," she said. "You need to be happy with who you are and just keep breaking barriers."
We are already starting to feel the effects of summer. Heat waves in Texas and California are already sending temperatures soaring. That could spell trouble for the nation's power supply. there are new concerns about outages in many areas of the country. Cheddar's Shannon Lanier explains the two main causes of blackouts, and what states are doing to keep the lights on and the air conditioning running.
If you have been on the road this past year, you've probably seen more accidents on the road than you ever have. You're not wrong. Traffic fatalities are not only increasing they are hitting historic highs. Almost 43,000 people died in motor vehicle accidents in 2021. Cheddar's Shannon Lanier investigates - and finds out why.
U.S. stocks close Tuesday at session highs after a subpar start to the trading day. Tim Chubb, Chief Investment Officer at the wealth advisory firm, Girard, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss. 'We're starting to see the moderation of three core things -- we've seen the moderation of prices, we've seen the moderation of wage growth we've seen in the labor market, and we've also seen a moderation of job openings,' he says.
The victims from the USA gymnastics sexual abuse scandal continue to seek justice. Survivors of Larry Nassar are seeking more than one-billion dollars from the FBI for failing to stop the convicted sports doctor when the agency first received allegations. According to a report released by the Justice Department's Inspector General, FBI agents knew
in July of 2015 that Nassar was accused of abusing gymnasts; however, Nassar wasn't arrested until December of 2016. The group that filed the claim includes Olympic medalist Simone Biles and around 90 other women. Louise Radnofsky, sports reporter at The Wall Street Journal, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Tattoo artist Katrina "Kat Tat" Jackson, famous for starring in the VH1 hit series "Black Ink Crew: Chicago," is also the first Black woman to own a tattoo shop in Beverly Hills. She joined Cheddar News to discuss her trailblazing work, the stigma BIPOC tattoo artists face in the industry, and the way the space has changed for artists of color since her start. "In the beginning, I remember walking into a tattoo shop just like, hey, I wanna learn, I wanna be a tattoo artist and kind of just being laughed at, not taken seriously," she said. "Even with the tattoo conventions, a lot of African American tattoo artists were almost scared to go to conventions because it's not a welcoming environment."
