Berlin/Santa Fe – In New Mexico, authorities are investigating the fatal incident on a film set after it has been confirmed that a prop gun fired by actor Alec Baldwin killed a camerawoman and seriously injured the director during the production of the western film “Rust”. The 48-year-old Joel Souza is currently being treated in a hospital in Santa Fe, his condition is critical, write the US media. The killed camerawoman Halyna Hutchins, 42, last posted pictures of the filming on her Instagram account. Now fans and colleagues are condoling under their photos.
The director James Cullen Bressack, who most recently made action films with Bruce Willis and Steven Seagal, spoke of an absolute tragedy and announced: “I will never again use anything other than airsoft or rubber guns in my films. That should never have happened. Halyna, you are a gem. ”Hutchins, an American camerawoman born in Ukraine, has worked on more than 30 films.
The shooting of “Rust” took place on the Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe, the capital of the southwest US state New Mexico. The ranch is located in the desert on the outskirts of Santa Fe and has been the location of major Hollywood productions since the 1950s. Genre classics such as “Easy Rider”, “Lucky Luke”, “Young Guns” and “Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid” with Paul Newman and Robert Redford were filmed there.
KOAT 7 News/AP/dpa
Fatal shooting site: This aerial photo shows Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe. Officials from the Santa Fe County Sheriff cordoned off the set following the fatal incident.
After the fatal incident on the set of “Rust” on Thursday, the production of the film was suspended indefinitely. “The entire cast and crew are absolutely devastated by today’s tragedy and we send our deepest condolences to Halyna’s family and loved ones,” said the production company. They are cooperating with the Santa Fe police in their investigation. The sheriff’s office said the investigation was being conducted openly and that witnesses would continue to be heard. No charges were brought.
A Baldwin spokesman told the AP news agency about an accident in which a prop gun with blank cartridges misfired. The Santa Fe New Mexican reported that Baldwin, 63, was seen crying outside the sheriff’s office Thursday.
Prop weapons are offered on the illegal market worldwide
It is not uncommon for a prop weapon to become a sharp weapon. These shooting devices are being offered en masse on the illegal arms market worldwide – for example, Kalashnikovs that have been rendered unusable. Such so-called decorative weapons were used in France, for example, by the assassins of the attacks on the editors of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and on the Bataclan Theater.
At least in Germany, a weapon that is only used as a decoration, dummy or prop has to have the cartridge chamber changed so that it no longer accepts ammunition. The barrel must be drilled out in several places and provided with a steel pin. In Germany, the rules for decorative weapons are strict. But in the case of weapons from abroad, such as Slovakia, it is easier to dismantle them into a live weapon. Sometimes it is enough to remove the steel pin. Because the standards for decorative weapons are much more slack in Eastern Europe than in Germany. For example, the Munich attacker used a converted decorative weapon from Slovakia in 2016.
The business with such weapons is flourishing. In 2018, the police searched 26 objects in Berlin and the surrounding area. She was investigating a gang that had brought numerous converted weapons from Slovakia to Germany and sold them to criminals, including Glock pistols. “The example illustrates the demand in the criminal market for firearms and also for freely available and easily convertible weapons. It also underlines the need for uniform regulations for the control and acquisition of weapons of all kinds, ”says the gun crime situation report by the Federal Criminal Police Office.
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Died filming The Crow: actor Brandon Lee.
In the film world, too, it is not the first time that fatal incidents have occurred on the set. On March 31, 1993, Brandon Lee, the son of martial arts legend Bruce Lee, died in an accident while filming the film “The Crow”. He was hit by a fragment of a dummy pistol bullet that had recently been needed for a close-up. This had apparently jammed unnoticed in the barrel, was then thrown out by the explosion pressure of the blank cartridges when the actor Michael Massee shot and hit Lee. Since the production was delayed, no blank cartridges were used for some shooting scenes, but real cartridges from which only the gunpowder, but not the primer, had been removed.
Since it was obviously an accident, no charges were brought at the time. A later civil lawsuit by Lee’s mother against the studios was settled out of court. “The Crow” was completed at the request of the Lees family and is dedicated to him and his then fiancée Eliza Hutton, whom he planned to marry a few days after the film was completed.
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