Alec Baldwin shooting: Sheriff says 'suspected live round' fired on 'Rust' film set

The gun discharged by actor Alec Baldwin during the tragic shooting on the set of ‘Rust’ fired a “suspected live round”, said the Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza on Wednesday, 27 October. In a joint news conference between Sante Fe County Sherriff’s Office and district attorney’s office, which was also live streamed on social media, Mendoza said that “the facts are clear” that a “functional” weapon was handed over to the 63-year-old actor that ultimately killed the film’s director of photography Halyna Hutchins and left director Joel Souza injured. 

Santa Fe County Sheriff said, “The facts are clear: a weapon was handed to Mr. Baldwin. The weapon is functional and fired a live round, killing Ms. Hutchins and injuring Mr. Souza.”

However, Mendoza declined to say if negligence was involved in the fatal incident or who was responsible for putting the live round into the Baldwin-fired Clt revolver. He said, “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.” The Santa Fe County Sheriff also revealed that three guns have been seized from the scene, ‘the set for ‘Rust’.

The seized guns include the Colt revolver and Mendoza described the other two guns as an apparently non-functioning 0.45 calibre revolver and a plastic non-functioning prop gun. The Santa Fe County Sheriff said that 500 rounds of ammunition have also been seized from the scene which included blanks, dummy rounds, and even live rounds. 

"We believe that we have in our possession the firearm that was fired by Mr. Baldwin. This is the firearm we believe discharged the bullet," Mendoza said. "We also believe we have the spent shell casing from the bullet that was fired from the gun. We regard this specific spent casing and recovered projectile to be the live round that was fired from the revolver by Mr. Baldwin."

‘No live ammo is ever kept on set’

Notably, while the Sheriff suspected that a live round was fired by the gun handed to Baldwin, Detective Alexandria Hancock said in the document that armourer Hannah Gutierrez told investigators, “No live ammo is ever kept on set,” stated CNN. After interviewing assistant director David Halls, the detective wrote: “David advised the incident was not a deliberate act.” Two people who worked closely with Halls told CNN that the ‘Rust’ assistant director has been previously accused of disregard for safety protocols during productions back in 2019.

(IMAGE: AP/Unsplash)