The film’s lead sued Wednesday over the fatal shooting of cinematographer Helena Hutchins on a New Mexico western set by Alec Baldwin.
The head of lighting on the film “Rust” filed a lawsuit Wednesday over the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyana Hutchins on the New Mexico set of a western by Alec Baldwin, alleging negligence caused her to have “severe emotional distress” that she always had. will bother you.
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Serge Svetnoy said in the trial that the bullet that killed his close friend Hutchins narrowly escaped, and that he grabbed his head as he died.
“He should never have done the live rounds on this set,” Svetnoy’s attorney, Gary A. Dordick, told a news conference on Wednesday.
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, names nearly two dozen defendants associated with the film, including Baldwin, who was both the star and producer; David Hall, the assistant director who handed over the gun to Baldwin; and Hannah Gutierrez Reid, who was in charge of the weapons on set.
This is the first known lawsuit that may have stemmed from the October 21 shooting, which also injured “Rust” director Joel Souza.
It was the ninth film for Swetnoy and Hutchins to work together, and he took the job for less than he had asked her to do.
“She was my friend,” Svetnoy said at the press conference.
He said he had seen the guns sitting unattended in the dirt a few days before the shooting, and had warned those responsible.
According to the suit, on the day of shooting, he was setting the lighting to within 6 or 7 feet (2 m) of Baldwin.
“What happened next will haunt the plaintiffs forever,” the suit says. “He felt a strange and eerie whoosh feeling like pressurized air coming from his right side. He felt what he believed was gunpowder and other residual matter strikes directly into the right side of his face.”
Then, with his glasses scratching and his hearing suppressed, he knelt down to help Hutchins, the suit said.
The lawsuit seeks both compensatory and punitive damages to be determined later. It was filed in Los Angeles County because the plaintiffs and most of the defendants are located there.
Lawyers and representatives for the defendants did not immediately respond to emails and phone messages seeking comment on the suit.
Gutierrez Reid’s attorney, Jason Bowles, said in a statement Wednesday, “We are convinced this was sabotage and that Hannah is being framed. We believe Sean was molested before police arrived. “
Bowles said his client provided a full interview to officers and continues to assist them. The statement did not address the lawsuit.
“We are asking for a full and complete investigation of all facts including the live rounds, how they ended up in the ‘dummy’ box, and who put them there,” the statement said.
Gutierrez Reid said last week that he had inspected the Baldwin shot gun, but did not know how a live bullet went inside.
Santa Fe-Area District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altweiss said investigators found no evidence of sabotage. Agency spokeswoman Sasha Guinn Anderson confirmed her comments Wednesday on “Good Morning America.”
Carmack-Altweis says investigators know who loaded the gun, although it is unclear how the fatal round of ammunition was found on the film’s set. The district attorney said he was concerned that there were so many levels of security failures.
Dordik told the news conference that it was “far-fetched” to suggest that sabotage had taken place, but Gutierrez Reid still had the same responsibility to find out what was in the gun and who handled it.
Officials have said that Assistant Director Hall handed over the weapon to Baldwin and declared a “cold gun”, indicating that the weapon was safe to use.
Halls said last week that he hoped the tragedy prompted the film industry to “reevaluate its values and practices” to ensure no one is harmed again, but did not provide details.
Baldwin said on video on October 30 that the shooting was a “one trillion event”, adding that “we were a very well-oiled crew shooting a movie and then this horrific incident happened.”
According to court records in New Mexico, director Souza told detectives that Baldwin was rehearsing a scene in which he pulled a revolver from his holster and pointed to the camera, behind Hutchins and Souza.
Souza said the scene did not call for the use of live rounds, and Gutierrez Reid said that real gunpowder should never have been present, according to court records.
The Los Angeles lawsuit alleges that the scene did not ask Baldwin to fire the gun at all, only to point it out.
Hollywood professionals have been stunned by the circumstances of the shooting of the film’s sets. This has already prompted other production workers to step up safety measures.
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