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Published 19:19 08 Nov 2021 GMT
Alec Baldwin has said that film and television sets that use guns should have a police officer on set to "monitor weapon safety".
Halyna Hutchins, a 42-year-old cinematographer, was accidentally killed on October 21 after Baldwin fired a prop Colt revolver that had been loaded with live ammunition.
The firearm — which was fired during a rehearsal and was supposed to be loaded with dummy rounds — also wounded director, 48-year-old Joel Souza, on the New Mexico set.
Per Insider, Baldwin has since tweeted from his now-private Twitter account on the issue, writing: "Every film/TV set that uses guns, fake or otherwise, should have a police officer on set, hired by the production, to specifically monitor weapons safety."
This comes after 200 of Hollywood's most well-regarded cinematographers came together in a bid to "ban all functional firearms on set," per Deadline.
"We vow to no longer put ourselves and our crew in these unnecessarily lethal situations," they wrote in a collective statement. "We have safe alternatives in VFX and non-functional firearms. We won’t wait for the industry to change. We have a duty to affect change within the industry ourselves."
They added that they would "not let [Hutchins'] death be in vain," and called for "immediate action from our union leadership, our producers and our lawmakers to affect unified change on our behalf."
Baldwin spoke publicly about the tragedy to the press on Saturday, October 30, in Manchester, Vermont. He revealed that he could not comment on the investigation into Hutchins' death, but did tell reporters: "She was my friend, she was my friend."
The 63-year-old continued: "The day I arrived in Santa Fe to start shooting, I took her to dinner with Joel [Souza], the director. We were a very, very well-oiled crew shooting a film together, and then this horrible event happened."
"This is a one-in-a-trillion episode," he added.
The SNL star also revealed that he is also in contact with Hutchins' husband and their nine-year-old son, saying: "We are in constant contact with him because we're very worried about his family and his kid."
On October 26, a district attorney in Santa Fe, New Mexico, announced that she had not ruled out criminal charges over the death of Hutchins.
"We haven’t ruled out anything," Mary Carmack-Altwies, said, as reported by The New York Times. "Everything at this point, including criminal charges, is on the table."
