According to a New Mexico’s Office of the Medical Investigator report, actor Alec Baldwin’s deadly gunshot of a cinematographer on a movie set last year was an accident.
Baldwin’s attorney, Luke Nikas, responded angrily to the findings, claiming that it found that Halyna Hutchins’ gunshot death was a “tragic accident.”
She had been born in 1942.
The most current conclusion was reached after an autopsy was finished and a review of police files.
The pistol that Baldwin was holding throughout the practise, according to a previous FBI investigation, was in good operating condition and would not have fired unless it was completely cocked and the trigger was pressed.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office made the medical examiner’s findings public on Monday along with many FBI files on the handgun and ammo that were seized after the incident.
The medical examiner’s report, which found that this was a terrible accident, is what matters most, Luke Nikas said to Fox News in response to the medical investigator’s findings.
“This is the third time the New Mexico authorities have found that Alec Baldwin had no authority or knowledge of the allegedly unsafe conditions on the set, that he was told by the person in charge of safety on the set that the gun was “cold,” and that he believed the gun was safe,” the attorney continued.
Nikas said, “The FBI report is being interpreted incorrectly.
When the hammer was pushed back during testing, the pistol only ever shot once without the need to pull the trigger, and the gun cracked in two distinct locations.
The FBI was unable to fire the pistol in any previous test since it was in such bad shape, the speaker said.
Prosecutors said they would study the most recent allegations and were awaiting cell phone data from Baldwin’s counsel before deciding whether or not to press charges in the case.
On October 21, as Baldwin was aiming a gun at cinematographer Hutchins, it accidentally discharged, killing Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza.
They had been in a little church while it was being set up for a scene to be filmed.
A spokesperson for Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the armourer in the film, told Fox that she has been used as a “scapegoat” as a result of the shooting.
Additionally, the spokesperson stated that the recently released FBI report “shows the revolver was in good working order and that Baldwin had to have pulled the trigger to fire the revolver, directly contradicting his prior statements and those of Assistant Director Halls, through his attorney, who also said Baldwin didn’t pull the trigger.”
Baldwin’s defence team indicated that the report was more evidence that the shooting was “a terrible accident” and that he should not be charged with a crime. It is still too early to tell how much weight the medical investigator’s findings will have with the district attorney’s office.
Alec Baldwin’s lawyer, Luke Nikas, said in a statement: “This is the third time the New Mexico authorities have found that he had no authority or knowledge of the allegedly unsafe conditions on the set, that he was told by the person in charge of safety on the set that the gun was “cold,” and believed the gun was safe.”
In a December interview with ABC News, Baldwin said that the revolver he was aiming at Hutchins when it went off on the set of the Western movie “Rust” at her request. He claimed that he did not fire the shot.
The FBI investigation noted that even though the operational internal parts were there and in good condition, the pistol could not be forced to fire without pressing the trigger while the hammer was fully cocked.
Authorities said that as the hammer was being hit during FBI examination of the rifle, pieces of the trigger sear and cylinder stop shattered.
This made it possible for the hammer to drop and the primer to be ignited by the firing pin.
The study noted that this was the sole successful discharge made throughout the testing and that it was due to internal component breakage rather than the failure of the gun or safety devices.
How many times the revolver’s hammer may have been hit during the testing is not evident from the FBI investigation.
The revolver shouldn’t have been loaded for the practise, according to Baldwin, who was also a producer on the film “Rust.”
Live bullets were among the ammo collected from the shooting area, and they were discovered on a cart and in a holster that were within the structure where the shooting took place. Dummy and blank cartridges were also discovered.
In a damning report published in April, New Mexico’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau documented a story of safety breaches that violated accepted industry procedures, including evidence that production supervisors did little or nothing to resolve two misfires on set before the fatal shooting.
The bureau also kept track of crew members’ unheeded gun safety concerns and said that weapons experts were not permitted to decide on extra safety training.
The medical investigator’s office in New Mexico concluded that the shooting was an accident due to “the lack of clear intent to inflict damage or death” and that there was “no convincing proof” that the handgun was purposefully loaded with live bullets on the set.