There will be no charges against Alec Baldwin for the movie set shooting
Rust Move Productions Revisited after a Critique of an Involuntary Shooting by Hutchins in October 2021
Plans to resume filming were outlined last year by widower Matthew Hutchins in a proposed settlement to a wrongful death lawsuit that would make him an executive producer. Souza has said he will return to directing Rust production to honor the legacy of Halyna Hutchins.
Baldwin will continue his involvement as an actor and coproducer, and Rust Move Productions attorney Melina Spadone said via a representative that filming will restart Thursday at the Yellowstone Film Ranch.
After a scathing safety review by regulators in New Mexico that detailed ignored complaints and misfires before Hutchins’ death in October of 2021, the production company agreed to pay a $100,000 fine.
Santa Fe, New Mexico. Prosecutors in New Mexico plan to drop an involuntary manslaughter charge against Alec Baldwin in the fatal 2021 shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the Western film Rust, Baldwin’s attorneys said Thursday.
Baldwin has said the gun went off accidentally and that he did not pull the trigger. The gun couldn’t have fired unless it was pulled, according to an FBI report.
An investigation of a gun-related shooting death by a New Mexico citizen in the cinematographer Halyna Hutchins
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham this month signed a new $360,000 allowance for prosecution of the case. Evidentiary hearings are scheduled in early May in state District Court to decide whether to proceed toward trial. Baldwin has indicated that he won’t attend those hearings.
Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies says her office is pursuing justice in the death of Hutchins and wants to show that no one is above the law when it comes to firearms and public safety. She says the cinematographer’s death was preventable.
Rust safety coordinator and assistant director David Halls pleaded no contest in March to a conviction for unsafe handling of a firearm and a suspended sentence of six months of probation.
Baldwin’s lawyers said they were pleased with the decision to dismiss the case and encouraged a proper investigation of the accident.
Baldwin was pointing a pistol at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal when the gun when off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
The prosecutors didn’t comment on the case. It wasn’t clear if the charges could be refiled, or if the charge would also be dropped.
“The truth about what happened will come out and the questions that we have long sought answers for will be answered,” the lawyers, Jason Bowles and Todd Bullion, said in a statement.
The case against Baldwin had already been diminishing. A weapons charge that would have meant a much longer sentence had already been dismissed, and the first special prosecutor appointed in the case resigned.
The charges against Baldwin had marked a stunning fall for an A-list actor whose 40-year career included the early blockbuster The Hunt for Red October and a starring role in the sitcom 30 Rock, as well as iconic appearances in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed and a film adaptation of David Mamet’s Glengary Glen Ross. In recent years, he was known for his impression of former President Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live.
A video of the murder of a New Yorker slain 1827 in a shot-up by a 21-year-old man
The 65-year-old worked little since the shooting but hardly went into hiding. He made videos and posted pictures of his family on social media.
