By Andrew Dalton -
The Associated Press
The chief lighting officer for the film
Rust
filed a lawsuit Wednesday over the accident in which actor Alec Baldwin shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on set in New Mexico.
Serge Svetnoy sued Baldwin for negligence, alleging that what happened caused him
"severe emotional distress" that will haunt him forever.
He said the bullet that killed his close friend Hutchins nearly hit him and that he held her head as she died.
"They should never, ever, have had live bullets on this set," Svetnoy's attorney Gary A. Dordick said at a news conference Wednesday.
Attorney Gary Dordick, left, speaks with his client Serge Svetnoy, chief lighting officer on the 'Rust' film set, after announcing the filing of the lawsuit. Damian Dovarganes / AP
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, names
nearly two dozen defendants linked to the film, including Baldwin
, who was both a star of the film and a producer;
David Halls, the deputy director who turned the gun over to Baldwin;
and Hannah Gutierrez Reed, who was in charge of weapons on set.
It is the first known lawsuit of what could be many arising from the accident that occurred on October 21, which also injured the director of
Rust
, Joel Souza.
[Alec Baldwin speaks for the first time on camera since the fatal shooting]
It was the ninth movie that Svetnoy and Hutchins had worked together on, and he had taken the job on low pay because she had asked him to.
"
She was my friend
," Svetnoy said at the press conference.
Svetnoy also recounted that he had seen unattended weapons on the ground a few days before on set, and had warned the responsible persons about them.
The appointed assistant director breaks the silence to hand over the loaded gun to Alec Baldwin
Nov. 2, 202100: 30
On the day of the shooting, he was installing lights about 6 to 7 feet (2 meters) away from Baldwin, the suit says.
"What happened next will haunt the plaintiff for life," the court filing says.
"
She felt a strange and frightening hum of what it felt like pressurized air to his right
.
He felt something that looked like gunpowder and other residual materials hitting the right side of his face directly, ”the document relates.
Then, his glasses scratched and his ears stunned, he knelt to help Hutchins.
A photo of Serge Svetnoy, left, and Halyna Hutchins is shown at the press conference where the lawsuit was unveiled.
"She was my friend," the coach said of Hutchins. Damian Dovarganes / AP
The lawsuit demands compensatory and punitive damages,
the amount of which will be determined later.
It was filed in Los Angeles County because the plaintiff and most of the defendants are based there.
Attorneys and representatives for the defendants did not immediately respond to emails and phone messages from the agency for comment on the lawsuit.
Gutierrez Reed's attorney, Jason Bowles, said in a statement Wednesday: “
We are convinced this was sabotage and Hannah is being framed
.
We believe that the scene was also altered before the police arrived. "
Bowles said his client has provided authorities with a full interview about what happened and is continuing to assist them.
The statement did not mention the lawsuit.
['Rust' director claims Baldwin was practicing drawing his gun when he fired himself]
"We are calling for a full and thorough investigation of all events, including the presence of live bullets, how they ended up in the 'simulations' box and who put them there," the statement said.
This was the moments before Alec Baldwin's tragic shooting on the set of 'Rust'
Oct. 25, 202103: 50
Gutierrez Reed said last week that she had reviewed the gun that Baldwin fired, but that she
doesn't know how the gun ended up having a live bullet loaded
.
Santa Fe-area district attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said investigators have found no evidence of sabotage on set.
His comments, first made on
Good Morning America
, were confirmed Wednesday by his office spokeswoman Sascha Guinn Anderson.
Carmack-Altwies says investigators know who loaded the gun, although it is unclear how the bullets got onto the film set.
The district attorney said she is concerned that there are security breaches at so many levels.
Dordick said at the press conference that it
was "implausible" to suggest that there was sabotage
, and that even then, Gutierrez Reed still had responsibility for knowing what was in the gun and who had handled it before.
Authorities have said that Halls, the deputy director, handed the gun to Baldwin and told him it was a "cold pistol," indicating that it was safe to use.
Halls said last week that he hoped the tragedy would
prompt the film industry to "reassess its values and practices"
to make sure no one is harmed again, but did not elaborate.
Baldwin said in a video Oct. 30 that the shooting was something that happens "once in a billion."
"We were a very, very well coordinated team filming a movie together and then this horrible event happened," he added.
The woman who called 911 blamed an aide for the incident in Alec Baldwin's movie
Oct. 25, 202101: 09
Director Souza told detectives that Baldwin was rehearsing a scene in which he removed a revolver from its holster and pointed it at the camera, behind which were Hutchins and Souza, according to court records in New Mexico.
Souza said the scene did not require the use of live bullets, and Gutiérrez Reed said that the live ammunition should never have been in the weapon, according to court records.
[The 'Rust' aide who handed the gun to Baldwin was fired from a movie in 2019 for a similar incident]
The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles alleges that
the scene did not require Baldwin to fire the gun, that it was only intended to be aimed
.
Hollywood technicians and professionals have been puzzled by the circumstances in which the shooting occurred.
The accident has prompted other production teams to tighten their security measures.
___
Associated Press writers Morgan Lee and Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and AP film writer Jake Coyle in Los Angeles contributed.
