On Oct. 21, 2021, Halyna Hutchins and Joel Souza were shot with a gun being held by Alec Baldwin on the New Mexico set of Rust. Hutchins died from the gunshot, and Souza survived. Baldwin has maintained this entire time that he had no idea the gun was loaded, that he was told that the gun was “cold,” and that he doesn’t even believe that he pulled the trigger. While I’ve always believed that Baldwin and several others on Rust were criminally negligent, I never believed that Baldwin had any intention to harm anyone. It was an accident fueled by misinformation, professional incompetence and negligence. Still, back in January (almost three months ago exactly), a New Mexico prosecutor charged Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter. Now those charges have been dropped.
New Mexico prosecutors are dropping the involuntary manslaughter charges that were filed against Alec Baldwin for the 2021 shooting death of a cinematographer who was killed on the set of the film “Rust” when a gun he was practicing with went off, his lawyers said.
The decision to drop the charges came after a new team of prosecutors took over the case and reviewed new evidence that showed that the gun Mr. Baldwin was practicing with had been modified before it was delivered to the set, according to an official close to the investigation who was granted anonymity to discuss the case. That undercut the prosecution’s original argument that the gun could not have fired unless Mr. Baldwin had pulled the trigger, the official said.
Mr. Baldwin, who was told on the set that day that the gun did not contain any live ammunition, has maintained from the beginning that he did not pull the trigger before the gun fired, telling investigators that it went off after he had pulled the hammer back and let it go. But the original prosecutors had said that an F.B.I. analysis of the gun showed that he must have pulled the trigger, which contributed to their decision to bring charges.
In a statement, Mr. Baldwin’s lawyers, Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, said, “We are pleased with the decision to dismiss the case against Alec Baldwin and we encourage a proper investigation into the facts and circumstances of this tragic accident.”
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the film’s armorer, who loaded the gun the day of the shooting and was responsible for weapons on the set of the western, was also charged with involuntary manslaughter in the case. One of her lawyers, Jason Bowles, said that he had been informed of the prosecutors’ decision to dismiss the case against Mr. Baldwin, but that the charges against Ms. Gutierrez-Reed remained.
[From The NY Times]
“The charges against Ms. Gutierrez-Reed remained…” Good. By almost every account and investigation into the Rust set, Gutierrez-Reed was the main person at fault. She was the armorer, she was the one in charge of all of the weapons, she was in charge of making sure no one handed Alec Baldwin a loaded gun with a literal hair-trigger. As I’ve said several times, I am not claiming that Baldwin should not be criminally or civilly liable for anything – he was a producer on Rust, he was one of the people in charge of the production, he has managerial liability in a general sense. But manslaughter was always a stretch.
So, we aren’t getting a Hilaria Baldwin courtroom telenovela, si? We’ll just have to fondly remember her impromptu, Mexican-accented press conference on the street just after her husband was charged. Alec posted this IG shortly after the news came out (Luke is apparently his lawyer):
https://www.instagram.com/p/CrRcNmjuZVd/
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, ABC.
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