Santa Fe sheriff suspects other live rounds were on 'Rust' set where crew member was killed

At a press conference on Wednesday, Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said investigators suspect other live rounds were on the "Rust" movie set, the Alec Baldwin production where one crew member was killed and another injured when the actor fired a gun last week.

Video Transcript

- Considering that a live round was recovered, based on the witness interviews that you've done, can you tell us what you learned about how live ammunition was on the set and how it made its way into that firearm? We learned that there was possible target practice maybe earlier that day. What have you learned on that front?

ADAM MENDOZA: So I think what we've learned is we suspect that there was other live rounds that were found on the set. I won't comment further on how they got there. That's still part of-- this investigation is active. So I won't comment on how they got there. But we suspect that they are there.

That will be up. It will be determined when testing is done by the crime lab in reference to whether or not they are officially live rounds or not.

- Sir--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

Sir, how did two people inspect this gun and not notice there was a live round in it?

ADAM MENDOZA: That's what we're trying to determine. The people that inspected or handled the firearm when it was loaded before it got to Mr Baldwin we're interviewing. And there's some follow-up questions that we need to do.

So there's further investigation, further interviews. And we're going to try and determine exactly how that happened and if they should have known that there was a live round in that firearm.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

- Were there live rounds found in other guns?

- [INAUDIBLE]

ADAM MENDOZA: No. I said there was a total of 500 rounds of ammunition. That is a mix of blanks, dummy rounds, and what we are suspecting, live rounds.