Dave Halls, the assistant director who handed Alec Baldwin the gun with which he accidentally killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on Thursday, was fired from a shoot for another similar accident in 2019.
In 2019, Halls was working as an assistant director on the film “Freedom’s Path” when a loaded pistol accidentally went off on set and nearly injured a sound technician, the film’s production company Rocket Soul Studios said in a released statement. this Monday on CNN.
The assistant was also in charge of delivering the pistols to the cast and was “immediately expelled from the shoot. “
“Dave (Halls) was very sorry for the events and understood the reasons why he was fired. A new assistant director and a new gunsmith were hired. The filming of the film was successfully completed,” explained the production company.
Authorities in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, are investigating whether the lack of supervision of the pistol by the production gunsmith, Hannah Gutiérrez Reed, and the assistant director caused the accident in which Baldwin fired accidentally to Hutchins while filming “Rust. “
According to the affidavit of Baldwin and the film’s director, Joel Souza, in the hands of the Santa Fe County Courthouse, Halls handed the gun over to Baldwin shouting “cold gun, “ which in Hollywood slang refers to a gun. without ammunition.
Upon receiving the weapon, Baldwin fired at the target of Hutchins’ chamber, unaware that it contained real bullets instead of a blank.
However, and despite the fact that Halls was responsible for delivering the gun to the actor, the production had a professional gunsmith who had to supervise all the weapons present on the set.
For this reason, the investigation also focuses on Gutiérrez Reed, a 24-year-old young woman who was working on her second film as a gunsmith and who on that day of filming had three pistols in her charge.
The statements of team members who worked on the filming of “Rust”, a “western” produced and starred by Baldwin, describe a precarious work environment in which protests piled up, there were resignations and, supposedly, the rules were not followed. security protocols strictly.