it s fascinating to me, the skill you all have in a movie when it looks like somebody is right next to them or right in front of them and they are shooting, is that that s done with long lenses? they are 20 feet away? is there something is there something else they can do to allow them to be close? yeah, and thank you for saying that but we are professionals in this industry. and we work very hard at creating those illusions. they are done with either long lenses or what we call blocking the shot. where we re actually off access, we are not pointing a gun directly at someone but we are, like, pointing it six inches off their shoulder so they re not in the direct line of fire. there is, also, the ability to create a physical barrier in in our case, we use sheets of a clear material so you can separate the blank fire from another actor. and those are all safety implements that we use depending
and a search warrant made public today contains a detective s note that the assistant director told investigators he did not check all the rounds loaded in the weapon prior to the lethal shooting. joining us now, sheriff mendoza and district attorney mary carmack. sheriff, obviously, this is still an ongoing investigation but are you able to tell us how a live bullet got into the gun? and how how close you and the fbi might be in determining what exactly happened? right now, we can t determine exactly how that live bullet got into the firearm. that s going to be the the basis for further investigation. we need more interviews and that s going to be the the million-dollar question is how a live round ended up in the revolver that mr. baldwin fired. and, sheriff, have people been cooperative during the
investigation is complete. and and, madam district attorney, who on the set i mean, is it clear to you at least who on the set of the movie had the ultimate responsibility for the safety of the gun? i think that s probably a question more for the investigators, for the sheriff. we we don t necessarily know that, yet. i think that with the with the further interviews that the sheriff indicated they are trying to do, we might be able to come get a clearer picture of that. sheriff, you mentioned today that there were additional rounds found in the gun that you believe alec baldwin fired. do we know if those were live bullets, as well? or were they blanks? right now, indication are they were dummy rounds. so, they were not similar to the bullet that was fired. they were not similar. the casing was similar but the but the primer was not. so, we believe that those were dummy rounds that were in that were also in the gun that mr. baldwin fired.
investigation in terms of talking about what they know? initially, we got statements from the the three individuals mr. baldwin, mr. halls, and ms. gutierrez. we would like to get further statements, and most of those individuals are being cooperative. um, district attorney, you told cnn today that knowing how live rounds got into the gun that mr. baldwin used will be the lynchpin your word on whether or not to bring charges. do you have a sense tonight on what those charges could be or at least what part of the criminal code might apply? no, not at this point. i think it s a little too preliminary to to start focusing on what the criminal charges will be because we don t even know who who, if anyone, would actually be charged. um, you know, certainly, we have been looking at our our criminal code and look looking at unintentional killings which in in new mexico is called involuntary manslaughter. um, but we don t know that we ll be able to to get to that poin
just so i m clear, if somebody has a dummy round in and the gun is very close to them, could that potentially injure somebody? no, no, let me let me be clear. the dummy cartridge is totally inert. it s the blank cartridge that makes the smoke and the muzzle flash. so, sorry, i used the wrong terminology. if it s the blank cartridge, the smoke and the muzzle flash. i mean, if someone s holding that up to their head or in close proximity, that is something that they would avoid doing? sure. in the the safety guidelines, it clearly states that minimum safety distance in front of a muzzle of a blank firearm is 20 feet. so, you should never have that situation where a full-flash blank is being pressed up against someone s exposed skin or anything like that. there is, again, a little bit of a flash, a little bit of smoke and stuff coming out so you would not want that in that close proximity and that s why we maintain a minimum 20-foot safety distance.