Alec Baldwin will reportedly be charged with involuntary manslaughter on Tuesday in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
In October 2021, Baldwin fired a prop gun that contained live ammunition on the set of the film “Rust” which killed Hutchins, 42, and injured director Joel Souza, 49.
Earlier this month, criminal charges against Baldwin, along with the film’s armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, were announced but not officially filed.
If convicted, Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed face up to five years in prison.
David Halls, the film’s assistant director took a misdemeanor plea deal for handing the loaded gun to Baldwin.
According to the New York Post, prosecutors will make the charging documents, the probable cause statement, and Halls’ plea agreement public on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies’ office in Santa Fe, New Mexico said, “The District Attorney and the special prosecutor are fully focused on securing justice for Halyna Hutchins. The evidence and the facts speak for themselves.”
Special prosecutor Andrea Reeb said earlier this month, “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.”
New Mexico’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau fined Rust Movie Productions $136,793, the maximum possible fine in April 2022 and issued a “scathing narrative of safety failures in violation of standard industry protocols,” which included testimony that the production’s managers took little to no action to address two previous misfires leading up to the fatal shooting.
The agency also documented numerous gun safety complaints from crew members that they say went unnoticed and said that weapons specialists were not allowed to make decisions regarding additional safety training.
Gutierrez-Reed previously had a number of complaints lodged against her in regard to concerns over her careless handling of weapons. She and her assistants had been allegedly irresponsible with weapons on the set of Rust and Hutchins had reportedly been advocating for safer conditions for her team.
Baldwin had said in a 2021 interview with George Stephanopoulos that he “didn’t pull the trigger,” but an FBI analysis concluded that he did and in 2022 settled with Hutchins’ family in a wrongful death suit.
The “30 Rock” star sued several crew members of the film for recklessness and dereliction of duty in November 2022 and named Gutierrez-Reed, Halls, Prop Master Sarah Zachry, and gun supplier Seth Kenney.
Story cited here.
