As Hollywood mourns and attempts to learn from the fatal mistake made on the set of Rust, that left cinematographer Halyna Hutchins dead, a second crew member from the production has decided to sue Alec Baldwin. The 63-year-old actor fired the prop gun that killed Hutchins and is facing another lawsuit, this time from Rust script supervisor Mamie Mitchell, who claims that Baldwin played “Russian Roulette with a loaded gun” with the unfortunate incident.
Mamie Mitchell has filed a suit to the Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles (via a Deadline report) on Wednesday. In the filing, Mitchell claims that Alec Baldwin “intentionally, without cause or excuse” cocked and fired the prop gun that killed Halyna Hutchins. As she detailed in her statement:
Alec Baldwin should have assumed that the gun in question was loaded unless and until it was demonstrated to him or checked by him that it was not loaded. He had no right to rely upon some alleged statement by the Assistant Director that it was a ‘cold gun.’ Mr. Baldwin cannot hide behind the Assistant Director to attempt to excuse the fact that he did not check the gun himself.
The filing is 29 pages long and names Alec Baldwin, the producers of Rust and the production companies, first assistant director David Halls, property master Sarah Zachry and others involved for creating an unsafe environment that lead to the tragic on-set death. Mamie Mitchell was the person who called 9-1-1 following the incident.
Mamie Mitchell also claims that there were two previous incidents regarding weapons being discharged unsafely on set prior to Halyna Hutchins’ death, which took place on October 21. One was fired by Baldwin’s stunt double and the other by a prop master, who shot herself in the foot by mistake, as Mitchell alleges.
Prior to Mamie Mitchell’s filing, Rust gaffer Serge Svetnoy filed a lawsuit against Alec Baldwin just last week. According to the crew member, he was hit by fragments of the live round that killed Halyna Hutchins. In addition, Svetnoy accuses the producers of “consciously aware of the wrongfulness and harmfulness of their conduct.” He said he filed the lawsuit in hopes that it would bring about the necessary change that needs to be done on movie sets to improve safety conditions.
If these happenings on Rust were not troubling enough, a crew member named Jason Miller was bitten by a venomous spider while dismantling the set, and could be dealing with a possible amputation. Following the events on Rust, it’s unlikely we’ll never see the movie get finished as the cast and crew mourn Halyna Hutchins’ death and Hollywood grapples with the next steps that need to be taken to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.
