Footage of Alec Baldwin Right After the 'Rust' Shooting Has Been Released, and it's Truly Haunting
This is body cam footage from one of the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Department officers who responded to the set of Rust after Alec Baldwin's prop gun went off. So soon after Halyna Hutchins was shot in fact, that everyone is still talking about her medical condition, not realizing she wasn't going to make it. Which makes it all the more chilling.
Just before the clip begins, they apparently were talking about the film's director, Joel Souza, who was also wounded by the live round.
"What's her story?" Baldwin asks of Hutchins.
"A little bit rougher," is the reply. And the cop explains how she's getting a medivac flight. That they had to take their time with her because any time they give meds to a patient, they have to wait to make sure she's stable. But the flight crew has EMT training so she was in good hands.
A short time later, she was dead.
Absolutely gut-wrenching when you realize there was no saving her. And frankly, it's hard not to sympathize with Baldwin when you see him in this moment. His response to this whole tragedy has been nothing short of bizarre. We can only assume he's either ignored legal advice to not talk about the incident in public, or he's gotten the worst advice in the history of the profession. Because every time he's spoken, he's only made himself look more responsible:
But not here. He's a great actor. Legitimately one of the best of his generation. But Sir Lawrence Olivier couldn't pull off a performance this convincing. This is a guy in shock. Who has no clue how a live round got fired into two people from a gun in his hands. We don't have to buy his version of events where he said he never pulled the trigger and wasn't pointing the gun at anyone, because it defies basic physics. But you can empathize with him as he cooperates with the officer. Volunteers that he was holding the piece. And afterwards, when he met with investigators back at the Sheriff's office:
These are genuinely human moments. Even allowing for the fact Baldwin is legitimately a kook and, as a producer on the movie is ultimately responsible for whatever lax procedures allowed a loaded firearm onto a movie set. It's hard not to see a broken man in the body of one of Hollywood's biggest stars and feel somewhat bad for him. And if this is all we've heard from him since the shooting, instead of all those full-body cringe interviews he's given, it might be impossible not to be on his side.
But this footage is the first favor he's done for himself in all these months. Because in this moment, for the first time, he wasn't acting or trying to salvage his career.
God bless Halyna Hutchins' family that they get the closest thing they can find to some sort of justice in all this.