On Wednesday, District Attorney for Santa Fe County, Mary Carmack-Altwies, who is investigating the Rust film shooting that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins said it’s too early for any charges in the investigation but added that “no one has been ruled out at this point.”
“If the facts and evidence and law support charges, then I will initiate prosecution at that time,” Carmack-Altwies said. “I am a prosecutor that was elected in part because I do not make rash decisions and I do not rush to judgment.”
In surprising news, the sheriffs search found 500 rounds of ammunition on set: a mix of blanks, dummy rounds and what investigators believe to be additional live rounds, and a timeline revealed some of the crew had practiced live ammo shooting at a makeshift gun range earlier in the day.
In reconstructing the day, sheriffs are also focusing on the 911 call, made by the onset script supervisor Mamie Mitchell:
“We had two people accidentally shot on a movie set by a prop gun,” she told the emergency dispatcher, in a recording from the Santa Fe County Regional Emergency Communications Center. “We were rehearsing and it went off, and I ran out, we all ran out.”
The dispatcher asked if the gun was loaded with a real bullet.
“I cannot tell you. We have two injuries,” Mitchell replied. “And this ******* [assistant director] that yelled at me at lunch, asking about revisions… He’s supposed to check the guns. He’s responsible for what happens on the set.”
Actor/producer Alec Baldwin, Rust assistant director David Halls and the film’s armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed — the three people on set known to have handled the gun — have all been cooperating with the investigation, Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said.