Photo: Getty Images
Alec Baldwin may not have actually pulled the trigger on the gun that claimed the life of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
In December, Baldwin told ABC News that he never pulled the trigger on the set of Rust that wounded film director Joel Souza and killed Hutchins. Baldwin said last year, "I would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger at them, never."
Now, a Santa Fe district attorney appears to agree with the actor's story.
"You can pull the hammer back without actually pulling the trigger and without actually locking it," Santa Fe DA Mary Carmack-Altwies told Vanity Fair. "So you pull it back partway, it doesn't lock, and then if you let it go, the firing pin can hit the primer of the bullet."
Carmack-Altweis revealed that her team of investigators performed a test to see if a mechanical malfunction could have result in the gun going off on set. The DA said the result of the test showed that the hammer could have caused the gun to fire a bullet.
Other experts have claimed there's no way the gun could've fired without someone pulling the trigger, but the DA's test is critical as she weighs potential criminal charges.
Hutchins' family is suing Baldwin and the film's armorer in the fatal incident, claiming that several safety mistakes were made on the movie's set.