One year to the day after an involuntary manslaughter charge was leveled against him, Alec Baldwin has been indicted on a charge of involuntary manslaughter by a grand jury in New Mexico. The first charge against Baldwin was dropped in April of 2023. This second charge was made by new prosecutors in the case, who were brought in after first lawyer appointed by the Santa Fe county district attorney stepped down.
Both charges stem from an incident on the set of the independent Western Rust. On October 21, 2021, during the shooting of an action scene, a gun held by Baldwin fired a bullet that struck the movie’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, and its director, Joel Souza. While Souza survived, Hutchins died of her injuries. Baldwin was not only the actor holding the weapon that killed Hutchins, he is one of the producers of Rust.
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Baldwin has maintained that while he was holding the gun, he did not pull the trigger, nor did he place the round inside the gun which struck Hutchins. (In August, a forensics expert filed a report that claimed Baldwin “must have pulled the trigger” of the gun.) The film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, has also been charged with involuntary manslaughter. Her trial is set to begin next month. An assistant director on the film has already pled guilty to a misdemeanor.
Hutchins’ husband settled a wrongful death suit with the producers of Rust, and production of the movie actually resumed, with Baldwin back in his role, in the spring of 2023. (Hutchins’ husband is now an executive producer of the movie.) The second production, still directed by Joel Souza, was completed with prop guns that were incapable of firing bullets.
In a statement following the charge against Baldwin, the actor’s attorneys said “We look forward to our day in court.”
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