Photo: Getty Images
UPDATE: The Santa Fe District Attorney says Baldwin may NOT have pulled the trigger!
Following a lawsuit filed by the family of late cinematographer Halyna Hutchins regarding the fatal Rust shooting, Santa Fe D.A. Mary Carmack-Altwies has commented on an important aspect of the case.
Last week, one of the Hutchins’ lawyers, Brian Panish, said, "I think it's clear what happened. Alec [Baldwin] had the gun in his hand, he shot it -- Halyna was killed. The gun cannot fire unless the trigger is engaged and the hammer is back." However, Carmack-Altwies recently told Vanity Fair that it is possible that Baldwin didn’t pull the trigger.
"You can pull the hammer back without actually pulling the trigger and without actually locking it. So you pull it back partway, it doesn’t lock, and then if you let it go, the firing pin can hit the primer of the bullet," Carmack-Altwies said, after she had investigators perform tests to experiment with the mechanics.
In an interview with ABC in December, Alec Baldwin claimed he “would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger at them, never."
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The family of late cinematographer Halyna Hutchins has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Alec Baldwin for the Rust shooting that resulted in Hutchins’ death. Lawyers for the family also released a disturbing animated reenactment of what happened that day.
The suit claims that the failure to follow safety standards led to Hutchins’ death, including the appearance of live ammo on set. And while Baldwin has previously claimed that he only pulled back the hammer and did not pull the trigger on the gun that killed Hutchins, Brian Panish, one of the family’s lawyers, said, "I think it's clear what happened. Alec had the gun in his hand, he shot it -- Halyna was killed. The gun cannot fire unless the trigger is engaged and the hammer is back."
“There are many people culpable, but Mr. Baldwin was the person holding the weapon … that but for him shooting, she would not have died,” Panish added.
The family’s lawyers also claimed that Baldwin refused proper weapons training and said that the industry standard requires the crew to be behind protective glass during such a scene.
Baldwin’s lawyers released a statement on Tuesday (February 15th) following news of the lawsuit, denying the claims that he was “reckless,” saying that those claims are “entirely false.” Here is the video about the lawsuit and Baldwin's story: