Report: Reloaded Ammunition May Have Been In Gun That Alec Baldwin Fired On 'Rust' Set
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Reloaded ammunition may have been in the gun that actor Alec Baldwin fired on the set of "Rush" in New Mexico, according to a report published Tuesday.
Seth Kenney of the film's weapons supplier, PDQ Arm & Prop LLC, told investigators that reloaded ammunition, live rounds made by taking empty casings and installing a primer, gunpowder and a bullet, may have ended up on the set along with the dummy rounds and blanks he had provided, according to a search warrant affidavit reported Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal.
A Santa Fe judge issued a warrant Tuesday on an affidavit released by authorities that allowed police to search Kenney's office.
According to The Los Angeles Times, Kenney told a detective on Oct. 29 that "he may know where the live rounds came from." He also told police he had received "reloaded ammunition" from a friend whose name was not released with the logo of Starline Brass, the company whose ammunition components he used for the film.
Tell Reed, the father of "Rust" armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, told a detective on Nov. 15 that he had worked on a previous production with Kenney in August or September, The Times reported. Reed, who has worked on Hollywood movies as a weapons expert, said they had provided training for the actors at a firing range, the affidavit stated.
Reed told investigators that Kenney asked him to bring live ammunition and that Kenney returned to New Mexico with the "ammo can" that Reed brought him and it still contained .45-caliber Colt ammunition
"Tell stated this ammunition may match the ammunition found on the set of 'Rust," the affidavit said.
On the afternoon of Oct. 21 on the set just outside Santa Fe, a single live round from a Pietta Colt .45 revolver fired by Baldwin struck and killed 42-year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, and wounded the film's director, 48-year-old Joel Souza.
The 63-year-old Baldwin was inside a church building, sitting on a wooden pew, rehearsing unholstering his prop gun and pointing it at the camera when he fired it, according to a search warrant filed by Santa Fe County Sheriff's investigators. Hutchins was hit in the chest and Souza in the shoulder.
The gun was purportedly only supposed to be loaded with dummy rounds. According to the search warrant filed by sheriff's investigators, assistant director Dave Halls had handed Baldwin the prop gun and yelled that it was a "cold gun," meaning it was not loaded with live ammunition.
A total of about 500 rounds of ammunition were seized by investigators from the "Rust" movie set following the shooting. They included blanks, dummy rounds and what investigators suspect are other live rounds.
(© Copyright 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)
