Alec Baldwin faces involuntary manslaughter charge in ‘Rust’ shooting
Written by on January 19, 2023
SANTA FE, N.M. — Alec Baldwin will be charged in the 2021 shooting death of a cinematographer during a rehearsal of the set of his Western movie “Rust,” the Santa Fe district attorney announced Thursday.
Baldwin, 64, and “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed will each be charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter, the Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies and Special Prosecutor Andrea Reeb said in a news release.
Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins died shortly after being wounded by a gunshot while setting up a scene at the ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe on Oct. 21, 2021. Baldwin was pointing a pistol at Hutchins when the gun went off, killing her and wounding the director, Joel Souza.
Assistant director David Halls signed a plea deal for the charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon, according to the D.A.’s office. He has a suspended sentence and six months probation.
No charges will be filed in the shooting of Souza.
“After a thorough review of the evidence and the laws of the state of New Mexico, I have determined that there is sufficient evidence to file criminal charges against Alec Baldwin and other members of the ‘Rust’ film crew,” Carmack-Altwies said. “On my watch, no one is above the law, and everyone deserves justice.”
Andrea Reeb, the special prosecutor appointed by the DA to the case, added: “If any one of these three people — Alec Baldwin, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed or David Halls — had done their job, Halyna Hutchins would be alive today. It’s that simple.”
“The evidence clearly shows a pattern of criminal disregard for safety on the ‘Rust’ film set. In New Mexico, there is no room for film sets that don’t take our state’s commitment to gun safety and public safety seriously,” Reeb added.
Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza, who led the initial investigation into Hutchins’ death, described “a degree of neglect” on the film set. But he left decisions about potential criminal charges to prosecutors after delivering the results of a yearlong investigation in October. That report did not specify how live ammunition wound up on the film set.
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Baldwin — known for his roles in “30 Rock” and “The Hunt for Red October” and his impression of former President Donald Trump on “Saturday Night Live” — has described the killing of Hutchins as a “tragic accident.”
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Alec Baldwin sued others for handling of the loaded gun
Baldwin has sought to clear his name by suing people involved in handling and supplying the loaded gun that was handed to him on set. Baldwin, also a co-producer on “Rust,” said he was told the gun was safe.
In his lawsuit, Baldwin said that while working on camera angles with Hutchins during rehearsal for a scene, he pointed the gun in her direction and pulled back and released the hammer of the gun, which discharged.
New Mexico’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau has levied the maximum fine against Rust Movie Productions, based on a scathing narrative of safety failures, including testimony that production managers took limited or no action to address two misfires of blank ammunition on set prior to the fatal shooting.
Rust Movie Productions continues to challenge the basis of a $137,000 fine by regulators who say production managers on the set failed to follow standard industry protocols for firearms safety.
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Investigators initially found 500 rounds of ammunition at the movie set on the outskirts of Santa Fe — a mix of blanks, dummy rounds and what appeared to be live rounds. Industry experts have said live rounds should never be on set.
The armorer who oversaw firearms on the set, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, has been the subject of much of the scrutiny in the case, along with an independent ammunition supplier. An attorney for Gutierrez Reed has said the armorer did not put a live round in the gun that killed Hutchins, and believes she was the victim of sabotage. Authorities said they’ve found no evidence of that.
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Halyna Hutchins’ death was ruled an accident
New Mexico’s Office of the Medical Investigator determined the shooting was an accident following the completion of an autopsy and a review of law enforcement reports.
In April 2022, the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Department released a trove of files including lapel camera video of the mortally wounded Hutchins slipping in and out of consciousness as an evacuation helicopter arrived. Witness interrogations, email threads, text conversations, inventories of ammunition and hundreds of photographs rounded out that collection of evidence.
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Could the gun held by Alec Baldwin have fired without pulling the trigger?
Guns can be unintentionally discharged because of mechanical malfunction or insufficient firearm training and handling, but is that what happened?
This is a key investigative question. Some gun experts say guns can’t fire on their own, and the FBI seemed to back them up.
An FBI analysis released in August said three accidental-discharge tests were performed to determine if the gun could have fired without a trigger being pulled. Each test concluded the gun would not have fired “without a pull of the trigger.”
But the report also says the gun was in poor condition and its internal components were not intact or functional during the testing.
“When an accidental discharge examination is performed, it may not be possible to recreate or duplicate all of the circumstances which led to the discharge of a firearm without a pull of the trigger,” the report said.
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In December, Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza told Fox News, “Guns don’t just go off. So whatever needs to happen to manipulate the firearm, he did that and it was in his hands.”
In February, Carmack-Altwies told Vanity Fair that her investigative team found it is possible for a gun to fire without pulling the trigger. “You can pull the hammer back without actually pulling the trigger and without actually locking it. Then if you let it go, the firing pin can hit the primer of the bullet,” she said.
Baldwin’s attorney, Luke Nikas, says the FBI report is being “misconstrued.”
“The gun fired in testing only one time – without having to pull the trigger – when the hammer was pulled back and the gun broke in two different places,” Nikas’ statement says. “The FBI was unable to fire the gun in any prior test, even when pulling the trigger, because it was in such poor condition.”
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‘Rust’ will continue filming under new safety guidelines
State workplace safety regulators said that immediate gun-safety concerns were addressed when “Rust” ceased filming, and that a return to filming in New Mexico would be accompanied by new safety inspections.
The family of Hutchins — widower Matthew Hutchins and son Andros — settled a lawsuit against producers under an agreement that aims to restart filming with Matthew’s involvement as executive producer.
“Rust” was beset by disputes from the start in early October 2021. Seven crew members walked off the set just hours before the fatal shooting amid discord over working conditions.
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Hutchins’ death has influenced negotiations over safety provisions in film crew union contracts with Hollywood producers and spurred other filmmakers to choose computer-generated imagery of gunfire rather than real weapons with blank ammunition to minimize risks.
Read more in-depth details of the shooting and investigation here.
Contributing: Naledi Ushe, Maria Puente, USA TODAY; The Associated Press
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