Assistant who handed over loaded gun to Alec Baldwin had previously been fired

Dave Halls, the assistant director who on Thursday handed Alec Baldwin the gun with which he accidentally killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, was fired from a shoot for another similar accident in 2019.In 2019, Halls was working as an assistant director on the film “Freedom’s Path” when a loaded handgun accidentally went off the set and nearly injured a sound technician, the producer of the film Rocket Soul Studios said in a statement published Monday by CNN. The assistant was also in charge of handing over the guns to the cast and was “immediately kicked out of the shoot.” Dave (Halls) was very sorry for the events and understood the reasons why he was fired. A new assistant director and a new gunsmith were hired. The filming of the film ended successfully,” the production company explained. Authorities in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, are investigating whether a lack of supervision of the gun by production gunsmith Hannah Gutierrez Reed and assistant director caused the crash in which Baldwin accidentally shot Hutchins during the filming of “Rust.” According to the affidavit from Baldwin and the film’s director, Joel Souza, held by the Santa Fe County Courthouse, Halls handed the gun to Baldwin to the cry of “cold gun,” which in Hollywood jargon refers to a gun without ammunition. After receiving the gun, Baldwin fired aiming at the target of the camera hutchins was handling, unansked that it contained live bullets instead of a blank cartridge. However, and despite the fact that Halls was responsible for delivering the gun to the actor, the production had a professional armory that had to supervise all the weapons present in the shooting. Therefore, the investigation also focuses on Gutiérrez Reed, a 24-year-old girl who was working on her second film as a gunsmith and who on that day of filming had three pistols in her charge. Statements from crew members working on the set of “Rust,” a “western” produced and starring Baldwin, describe a precarious work environment in which protests piled up, there were resignations and, supposedly, safety protocols were not strictly followed.

Original source in Spanish