Last week it was Rust gaffer Serge Svetnoy and today the second of what will likely be many lawsuits over the October 21 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins by Alec Baldwin on the New Mexico set of the indie Western was filed by script supervisor Mamie Mitchell.
Represented by Gloria Allred, who plans a press conference later this afternoon, the compliant put in the Los Angeles Superior Court docket names star/producer Baldwin, Rust producers and production companies, armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed and more in a damning portrayal of a film playing fast and loose with safety and other regulations.
“Alec Baldwin should have assumed that the gun in question was loaded unless and until it was demonstrated to him or checked by him that it was not loaded,” the filing asserts in language sure to be echoed in at the presser Mitchell and Allred will be conducting later this morning. “He had no right to rely upon some alleged statement by the Assistant Director that it was a ‘cold gun,’” the complaint goes on to say, adding First Assistant Director David Halls to the mix.
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“Mr. Baldwin cannot hide behind the Assistant Director to attempt to excuse the fact that he did not check the gun himself,” continue the complaint from Mitchell, who was in the church location on the Bonanza Creek Ranch when Baldwin’s “quick draw” rehearsal turned tragic.
It was announced that Mitchell became a client of Allred’s on October 26. The Rust script supervisor made a 911 call to police seeking assistance for the mortally wounded Hutchins. Mitchell told 911 operators,”we need help immediately.” Allred said at the end of October that Mitchell “was standing very close to Halyna Hutchins and the director, Joel Souza, when both Halyna and Joel were shot.”
“We are conducting our own investigation of what happened because there are many unanswered questions,” Allred said at the time. “Mamie has been interviewed by the Sheriff’s Department. She has information and evidence which she believes will be helpful in this investigation.
As Baldwin, Gutierrez Reed, Halls and others, including injured director Joel Souza, have been repeatedly questioned by police, a series of search warrants executed by the Santa Fe Sheriff’s office have found a cache of weapons and, according to Sheriff Adan Mendoza, “500 rounds of ammunition … a mix of blanks, dummy rounds and what we are suspecting are live rounds.”
Both Halls, who was fired from a previous film over gun safety issues, and Gutierrez Reed have lawyered up, as Mitchell did. The armorer’s lawyer has been floating a “sabotage” theory in the media to explain the tragedy that took DoP Hutchins’ life last month.
Hours before the killing of Hutchins, several members of that team resigned from the $7 million Western citing safety and financial reasons.
First AD Halls admitted to police not long after the shooting that he did not properly check the 1880s-era gun before declaring it a “cold gun” and handing it over to star/producer Baldwin for the rehearsal that went so horribly wrong.
As the Santa Fe Sheriffs Office’s probe into Rust continues, the production itself has hired law firm Jenner Block to conduct an internal investigation into the events of that tragic day; one which we here is still ongoing.
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