The family of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was killed on the set of Rust, has filed a lawsuit against Alec Baldwin and others involved in the film.
The suit was filed in Sante Fe County on Tuesday, also naming assistant director Dave Halls, who handed Baldwin the gun that shot Hutchins, and the prop master, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, as defendants.
“Defendant Baldwin and the other Defendants in this case failed to perform industry standard safety checks and follow basic gun safety rules while using real guns to produce the movie Rust, with fatal consequences,” the suit states.
“Halyna Hutchins deserved to live, and the Defendants had the power to prevent her death if they had only held sacrosanct their duty to protect the safety of every individual on a set where firearms were present instead of cutting corners on safety procedures where human lives were at stake, rushing to stay on schedule and ignoring numerous complaints of safety violations.”
The family’s lawyers announced the suit in a Tuesday morning news conference in Los Angeles, playing an animation that allegedly recreated the events that led to Hutchins’ death on the movie set last year.
Hutchins was shot on October 21 while preparing for a scene at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, as a gun held by Baldwin discharged, killing the cinematographer and injuring the film’s director Joel Souza.
The filing comes after Rust script supervisor Mamie Mitchell sued Baldwin and the film’s other
Baldwin has since insisted that he never pulled the trigger despite holding the firearm that shot Hutchins, telling George Stephanopoulos, “I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them.”
Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed also filed a complaint in early January against Seth Kenney, the owner of PDQ Arm & Prop, which supplied prop weapons and ammunition to the production.
Watch above, via KOAT-TV.