According to the FBI's forensic report, the gun used in the deadly shooting incident that took the life of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie Rust could not have been fired without Alex Baldwin pulling the trigger, contrary to what the actor initially claimed.
The FBI recently concluded its forensic analysis of the infamous Rust case, however, the final report obtained by ABC News indicates that the .45 Long Colt caliber F.lli Pietta single-action revolver "could not be made to fire without a pull of the trigger," though now it falls in the hands of the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office to continue with the investigation. In December of last year, Baldwin addressed the incident in an interview with ABC's own George Stephanopoulos, where he categorically stated that "The trigger wasn't pulled [...] I didn't pull the trigger."
Baldwin's legal team quickly fired back against the content of the Rust forensic analysis, with attorney Luke Nilas saying, “The critical report is the one from the medical examiner, who concluded that this was a tragic accident [...]." They also stated, "The FBI report is being misconstrued," insisting that New Mexico authorities have said three times now that Baldwin believed the gun was cold and safe for use on set. Meanwhile, the person tasked with handling weapons on the set of Rust, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, had her lawyer speak out in her defence. "These new filings demonstrate various production members' attempts from the very beginning to shirk responsibility and scapegoat Hannah, a 24-year-old armorer, for this tragedy," said Reed's laywer, insisting that her client was not given sufficient time and training days as the film’s armorer.
The FBI's report goes into further detail about how the gun’s mechanism worked. The report claims that with the hammer fully cocked, the gun could not have been fired without pulling the trigger "while the working internal components were intact and functional," if the revolver’s hammer was in the quarter and a half-cock position. For the .45 Long Colt caliber F.lli Pietta to fire, the hammer would have had to be de-cocked on a loaded chamber so that the gun could detonate a primer "without a pull of the trigger when the hammer was struck directly," the report concluded.
Hutchins, aged 42, died due to fatal injuries sustained from the gunshot that same tragic day, and her widower blamed Baldwin for his wife’s death, with the actual pulling of the trigger being a significant point of contention he singled out. At the time of writing, just like Baldwin's attorneys claimed, New Mexico authorities have not suggested if or against whom charges could be pressed.
The on-set safety protocols for Rust have been lambasted by several experts in the field, though currently Baldwin, assistant director Dave Halls, and Gutierrez Reed are at the center of the controversy, with the latter having had a clash with Nicolas Cage in the past.
Source: ABC News