We still haven’t received the final results of the ongoing law enforcement investigation into the accidental shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins by Alec Baldwin on the set of his now-shelved movie, Rust. But the number of lawsuits stacking up as a result of the shooting continues to grow. One more was added to the pile this week, as Hutchins’ family filed a wrongful death suit against Alec Baldwin himself and possibly others who were involved in the chain of custody of the “prop” gun that killed her. The family’s attorney described Baldwin as having “portion liability” in the woman’s death but suggested that others would likely turn out to be responsible as well. The rather odd part of this story involves an animated video that the family produced showing Hutchins being killed. (NY Post)

Lawyers for Halyna Hutchins’ family filed a wrongful-death suit Tuesday against actor Alec Baldwin — while releasing a chilling video re-enacting the shooting that killed the cinematographer on the set of “Rust.”

The eerie footage — an animated version titled “Killing of Halyna Hutchins on the set of ‘Rust’ ” — uses computer-generated figures of Baldwin and others on the fated film shoot that day, including the moment the star allegedly pulled the trigger of what was supposed to have been a prop gun with blank bullets.

“There are many people culpable, but Mr. Baldwin was the person holding the weapon … that but for him shooting, she would not have died,” said Hutchins family lawyer Brian Panish at a press conference in Los Angeles.

I wanted to first tackle the question of the animated video that the family produced. The Post describes it as “eerie” and that probably doesn’t go far enough. It’s downright creepy. There doesn’t seem to be an original copy of the video available, but Fox News has a video from the attorney’s press conference where they played the entire thing. I debated including it, but it’s just so surreal that I thought you might want to see for yourself. Remember that this is a “video of a video” so the quality isn’t the greatest, but it’s good enough to see what they produced. It must be horribly unsettling for the family to have to see this since it depicts their daughter being shot repeatedly, starting right at the beginning of the film. I’ve queued it up to start where the attorney begins playing the film. The usual warnings about disturbing content apply.

Much of the video involves a list of circumstances on the set where significant safety issues had been raised, a fact the attorney says Baldwin and his production company had to be aware of. The film then goes on to list all of the industry safety standards that were violated, with each one being played out by the animated characters in the film. It’s truly an unsettling display.

As to the basis of the lawsuit, the claims being made by the family don’t seem farfetched. The video also flatly denies some of Baldwin’s claims about how the shooting unfolded, suggesting that he definitely cocked the revolver and pulled the trigger while sitting only four feet from the film crew. (A claim that Baldwin has previously, though implausibly denied.) Further, they claim that the armorer had tried to put Baldwin through a required firearms safety course before filming began, but that he refused to take the course.

Does the suit stand a chance? I previously asked a couple of attorneys if a wrongful death lawsuit could proceed under these circumstances. They both agreed that it wasn’t a sure thing, but under the right circumstances, such a suit could succeed and similar cases have been won in the past.

This is probably going to drag on for years at the rate things are going. A lot of this may ride on the final results of the law enforcement investigation. If those results line up anywhere near the conclusions being drawn by the Hutchins family’s attorney, the shooting will still likely be found to have been technically accidental, but it was driven by so much recklessness and incompetence that her death should have been completely preventable. (Something we’ve been saying here since we first learned of the incident.)