The final FBI forensics report on the accidental shooting that killed “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins contradicts testimony from the film’s actor/producer Alec Baldwin, arguing that the gun that killed Hutchins could not have fired “without a pull of the trigger while the working internal components were intact and functional.”
In a December 2021 interview with ABC News, Baldwin said that he did not pull the trigger while he was rehearsing a scene in which his character shoots a firearm at the camera. Baldwin said he was told that the gun was “cold,” meaning that it was not loaded with live ammunition. While practicing with the gun, it discharged, fatally wounding Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza.
“I’m not shooting to camera lens. I’m holding the gun where she told me to hold it, which turned out to be below her armpit,” Baldwin told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “But we kept doing this…. I start to cock the gun. She said, just ‘cheat it down, could you see that, could you see that.’ I let go of the hammer of the gun, the gun goes off.”
“The trigger wasn’t pulled,” he insisted. “I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them. Never.”
But in the forensics report first published by ABC, the FBI determined that the gun could only have fired if the trigger was pulled, even if the hammer was only cocked back a quarter-length. Ballistics experts determined this by performing accidental discharge experiments with a single-action .45 Colt caliber F.lli Pietta, the same model of gun that Baldwin was holding when the incident occurred.
The experiments also determined that the gun could only discharge a primer, but not a bullet, if the hammer was not cocked back “without a pull of the trigger when the hammer was struck directly.”
Santa Fe investigators have been waiting for the FBI ballistics report to be completed before passing the “Rust” case to prosecutors for potential charges. Investigators are also waiting for Baldwin’s phone records after the actor turned over his phone to police in Suffolk County in New York.