Hutchins, the film’s cinematographer, was killed and director Joel Souza was injured when a gun used by actor Alec Baldwin exploded while rehearsing a scene at Bonanza Creek Ranch in New Mexico in October. The sheriff of Santa Fe County released several files Monday from the ongoing investigation into the shooting, including photos, recordings and reports, officials said. A video of Hutchins’ death is included in the published data.
In a letter to Sheriff’s Office, Brian Panish, a lawyer for the Hutchins family, said the release of the evidence had caused “irreparable” damage to her husband, Matthew Hutchins, and their son.
“Your office has trampled on Hutchin’s constitutional rights,” the April 27 letter said. Without any discussion, your office unilaterally decided that Mr. Hutchins would be given access to the review materials early Monday morning, April 25, before being released to the public later in the afternoon, giving him less than working day to review the materials. ”
Due to the “huge amount of material”, this was a “completely insufficient period of time” and the family was not given the opportunity “to request the exercise of judgment and editing of sensitive material,” Panish wrote.
The letter also said that the sheriff’s office had not edited Hutchins’ personal and personal information. Panish wrote that his client feared that the video of his wife’s last moments could be used by abusers to emotionally abuse their son.
The letter called on the sheriff’s office to respect “the Hutchin family’s constitutional rights to dignity, privacy, respect and justice in the future,” and the office to remove Hutchins’ staff, “dying on the church floor.”
“While the damage from publishing the video is irreparable, downloading the video will put an end to your office’s involvement in causing additional damage,” the letter said.
CNN contacted the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office to confirm receipt of the letter and further comment.
During an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday, Santa Fe County Sheriff Aden Mendoza defended the release. “We are responding to a request for public records requiring disclosure, and there has also been an effort to be transparent in the investigation,” Mendoza said.
The investigation is “nearing completion”, he told ABC, adding that his office is awaiting an FBI analysis of firearms ammunition, DNA fingerprints, a report from a medical examiner and some analysis of mobile phone data. His office hopes this will end in “weeks, not months,” he told GMA.
The released evidence includes “on texts”, the sheriff said
Evidence files released by the sheriff’s office also contain text messages that Rust gunman Hannah Gutierrez Reed shared with an ammunition supplier for a previous film in 2021 – not Rust – where she said she planned to shoot with combat ammunition while on set. .
Mendoza called the text messages “relative” in an interview with NBC’s “Today” on Tuesday, and said investigators were investigating who brought ammunition into the Rust kit.
“At the moment, no one has shown up and admitted that he brought the cartridges live on the set. There was information from text messages that was alarming based on the fact that there was talk of live ammunition and it was probably used in a previous film, and that was just a few months before the production of the Rust film set began, so this “It’s alarming,” Mendoza said.
A law enforcement official told CNN that they considered the exchange of text messages important because they were trying to determine if the gunsmith had practiced shooting exercises while she was in charge of the safety of the set.
Gutierrez’s lawyer Reid Jason Bowles told CNN that his client wanted to shoot with a pistol to find out how the historic weapon worked, and claimed that she did not shoot live on the set.
CNN’s Cherry Mosberg, Josh Campbell and Stella Chan contributed to this report.
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