Alec Baldwin shooting: Actor’s daughter defends father as sheriff confirms no-one cleared in probe

During Wednesday’s press conference, Santa Fe County sheriff’s office revealed that they recovered three guns, and approximately 500 rounds of ammunition from the set of Rust.

The bullets were a mix of blanks, dummy rounds, and, possibly, live rounds.

The sheriff further specified that one of the three guns collected from the set was a non-functioning firearm.

“There was a total of 500 rounds of ammunition — that is a mix of blanks, dummy rounds and what we are suspecting [are] live rounds,” Sheriff Adan Mendoza said. “[It’s] too early right now to comment on charges at this point.”

After the fatal shooting on the set of Rust took place, a Change.org petition addressed to Alec Baldwin that calls for a ban on using real firearms on set and demands better working conditions for crew has garnered more than 64,000 signatures.

The originator of the petition, who seem to have attended the same institute as Halyna Hutchins, wrote: “We need to make sure that this avoidable tragedy never happens again.”

“There is no excuse for something like this to happen in the 21st century. Real guns are no longer needed on film production sets,” they added. “This isn’t the early 90’s, when Brandon Lee was killed in the same manner. Change needs to happen before additional talented lives are lost.”

Towards the end, the petition-maker also demanded “Baldwin to use his power and influence in the Hollywood film industry to make a change and ban real guns on film sets.”

A California lawmaker says he will propose a “live” gun ban on movie sets after the fatal shooting on the set of Rust.

David Cortese, who is a Democratic state senator for Silicon Valley, said his legislation banning “live” ammunition on sets would “prevent this type of senseless violence and loss of life,” in reference to the Baldwin shooting.

“There is an urgent need to address alarming work abuses and safety violations occurring on the set of theatrical productions, including unnecessary high-risk conditions such as the use of live firearms,” Cortese said in a statement.

He acknowledged that the Rust shooting occurred outside of his home state, in New Mexico, but said: “It is important that California establish new safety standards and best practices for all those who work in the industry and particularly in our own state.

Megan Sheets has the full story

A week after the shooting on the set of Rust, accounts, and images released in court documents, interviews and social media postings have portrayed much of what happened during the tragedy, but they have yet to answer the key question: how live ammunition wound up in a real gun being used as a movie prop, despite precautions that should have prevented it.

Read the full story here.

Assistant director Dave Halls who handed over the prop gun to Alec Baldwin allegedly admitted that he didn’t thoroughly check it, according to new documents.

Halls allegedly told investigators that typically he would “check the barrel for obstructions,” and then armourer Hannah Reed-Gutierrez “opens the hatch and spins the drum,” before yelling “cold gun” on set.

But before the shooting on 21 October, Halls said he “could only remember seeing three rounds” of dummy bullets in the chamber.

“He (Halls) advised he should have checked all of them, but didn’t, and couldn’t recall if she (Reed-Gutierrez) spun the drum,” the documents state.

After the shooting, Halls said they opened up the gun and found four dummy rounds and one live round.

“He advised he could only remember seeing at least four dummy casings with the hole in the side, and one without the hole,” the documents state. “He advised this round did not have the ‘cap’ on it and was just the casing. David advised the incident was not a deliberate act.”

The armourer on the film Rust, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, told a detective that she had checked the dummy rounds on set to ensure that they were not “hot”, according to an affidavit released on Wednesday.

Dummy rounds don’t have a primer cap and contain no gun powder. Ms Gutierrez-Reed told detectives that the ammunition was left out on a cart on the set while the crew took a break for lunch.

Assistant director, Dave Halls, then took the firearm from the cart and handed it to Alec Baldwin before the shooting, court papers detailed.

Ms Gutierrez-Reed reportedly told the detective that no live ammunition “is ever kept on set”.

Actor Alec Baldwin has retweeted an article that claims that he had no idea that the gun he used contained live ammunition.

The article from the New York Times, retweeted by Mr Baldwin, described how assistant director Dave Halls declared the gun was “cold” before handing it to the actor. The article said that the assistant director had reportedly told detectives that he should have inspected each round in each chamber but didn’t.

Mr Baldwin also posted a second article a few days ago, originally published by Variety, which had the headline: “Alec Baldwin was told prop gun was safe before fatal shooting, affidavit says.

My colleague Alisha Rahaman Sarkar has the details.

The family of a camera operator who was killed on the set of Midnight Rider have said that Hollywood needs to do more to protect staff.

Camera operator Sarah Jones died from her injuries after she was hit by a freight train in 2014 while filming for the film Midnight Rider, a biopic about musician Gregg Allman.

Her father, Richard Jones, told Fox News that the death of Hayla Hutchins was a painful reminder of the dangers of film and television sets.

He said: “It hurts. We’ve been working on this so that it wouldn’t happen again. And yet it has. I had hoped that Sarah’s death would make a difference. I had hoped that Sarah’s death would even save lives. I would have hoped that Sarah’s death would have saved Halyna.”

My colleague Arpan Rai reports on Mr Jones’ interview.

Nicholas Cage had previously complained about the behaviour of Rust amourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reid, it has been claimed.

The actor allegedly worked with Ms Gutierrez-Reid on the film The Old Way, only two months before she went to work on Rust.

A crew member who was responsible for positioning cameras on The Old Way told the film industry website The Wrap that Nicholas Cage had burst out in anger at Ms Gutierrez-Reid’s behaviour.

Stu Brumbaugh, a key grip on the movie, alleged that Ms Gutierrez-Reid had fired a gun near the cast and crew. The incident apparently caused Nicholas Cage to shout: “Make an announcement, you just blew my f***ing eardrums out!”.

He also alleged that it was the second time that the armourer had fired a gun in three days and that Nicholas Cage stormed off set.

My colleague Sam Moore has more details.

Trial attorney Jeff Harris had told CNBC that the question of negligence on the film Rust could come down to the amount of firearms training Baldwin received.

Mr Harris, who is not representing any party in the incident, told the American news network: “It may ultimately boil down to really a question of whether or not the actor was appropriately trained in the use of firearms, and that would fall on the production company, and it might absolve Baldwin of negligence.”

He added that gross negligence likely occurred on the set of the film. He said: “I frankly think that if you have a movie set where you’ve got live ammunition that is intermingled with dummy ammunition and intermingled with blanks, that’s the kind of activity that rises to the level of gross negligence, and I do believe that someone, ultimately, is going to be charged with at least criminal negligence in this case.”