The assistant director who reportedly handed Alec Baldwin the prop gun that killed 42-year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins has been involved in a similar situation before. As Mamas Uncut previously reported, assistant director David Halls was the person who picked up the prop gun and yelled “cold gun” before handing it to Alec Baldwin.
Halls reportedly picked up the prop gun from a cart that was prepared by the film’s armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. Sadly, Hutchins was then accidentally shot in the chest while she, Director Joel Souza, and Baldwin were rehearsing how Baldwin was going to unholster the gun for the scene.
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Rust Assistant Director David Halls Had Previously Been Fired After a Gun Accidentally Discharged on a Set He Worked on in 2019
Now, People is reporting that David Halls was allegedly fired from a film in 2019 after a firearm injured a crew member on that set. While the assistant director for Freedom’s Path, a gun was also unexpectedly discharged.
A person from the sound department jumped at the sound of the blast and suffered an injury as a result, CNN reported after talking to a producer who worked with Halls on Freedom’s Path.
“Halls was removed from set immediately after the prop gun discharged. Production did not resume filming until Dave was off-site,” a producer told CNN. “An incident report was taken and filed at that time.”
However, despite being fired for the incident, the producer continued by saying, Halls “was very remorseful for the events, and understood the reasons he was being terminated. A new assistant director, as well as a new armorer, was hired for the duration of principal photography. Production of the film finished successfully.”
The assistant director has not yet made any public comments regarding this most recent incident. Production for Rust has since been shut down. The investigation remains ongoing.
On Set Electrician Reveals His Last Moments With Halyna Hutchins After She Was Accidentally Shot
In addition to this latest update, an electrician on the set at the time of the tragedy has issued an emotional Facebook post about his last interaction with Halyna Hutchins. Serge Svetnoy was standing right next to Hutchins when she was shot.
After revealing that he had worked with Hutchins on nearly every one of her movies, Svetnoy wrote that he was “standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Halyna during this fatal shot that took her life and injured the director Joel Souza.”
He went on to say that he “was holding her in my arms while she was dying. Her blood was on my hands.”
“I want to tell my opinion on why this has happened. I think I have the right to do it. It’s the fault of negligence and unprofessionalism. The negligence from the person who was supposed to check the weapon on the site did not do this; the person who had to announce that the loaded gun was on the site did not do this; the person who should have checked this weapon before bringing it to the set did not do it. And the DEATH OF THE HUMAN IS THE RESULT!”
In the end, Svetnoy said that he does “not wish anyone to go through what I went through, what her husband Matt Hutchins and her son Andros went through, and the actor Alec Baldwin, who has been handed a gun on set. He has to live with the thought that he took the life of the human because of unprofessional people.”