SANTA FE, New Mexico — On Thursday, prosecutors said that actor Alec Baldwin and a weapons specialist would be charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of a cinematographer on a film set in New Mexico. They will be charged with this because they had a “criminal disregard for safety.”
Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies put out a statement about the charges against Baldwin and Hannah Gutierrez Reed, who were in charge of weapons on the set of “Rust.”
Halyna Hutchins died on October 21, 2021, after being hurt during rehearsals at a ranch outside Santa Fe. Baldwin was pointing a gun at Hutchins when it went off, killing her and injuring the director, Joel Souza.
According to the district attorney’s office, assistant director David Halls, who handed the gun to Baldwin, has agreed to plead guilty to negligent use of a deadly weapon.
Involuntary manslaughter can mean that a person killed someone else while doing something legal but dangerous and acting carelessly or recklessly.
Baldwin Set To Spend 18 Months In Prison
According to New Mexico law, the charge is a fourth-degree felony punishable by up to 18 months in prison and a $5,000 fine. Since the crime was done with a gun, the charges also include a clause that could lead to a five-year mandatory prison sentence.
According to Carmack-Altwies, charges will be filed by the end of January, and Baldwin and Gutierrez Reed will be summoned to appear in court. She said that prosecutors wouldn’t use a grand jury but instead would rely on a judge to decide if there was enough evidence to go to trial.
Andrea Reeb, the special prosecutor in the case, said there was a “pattern of criminal disregard for safety” on the movie set.
“If any of these three people — Hannah Gutierrez Reed or David Halls — had done their job, Halyna Hutchins would be alive today. “It’s as simple as that,” said Reeb, a newly sworn Republican state legislator.
A ‘Miscarriage Of Justice’
Baldwin’s lawyer called the charges “a terrible miscarriage of justice.”
“There was no reason to believe there was a live bullet in the gun — or anywhere on the movie set,” the actor said. He believed the people he worked with, who told him that the gun didn’t have any live rounds. “We will fight these charges and win,” said Luke Nikas.
The lawyer for Gutierrez Reed said that the charges were based on “a very flawed investigation and a wrong understanding of the full facts.”
“We intend to bring the full truth to light and believe Hannah will be found not guilty by a jury,” Jason Bowles said.
Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza was responsible for the first investigation into Hutchins’ death. He said there was “a degree of neglect” on the film set. But after a year-long investigation, he gave the results to prosecutors in October and let them decide if criminal charges should be brought. The report did not say how live ammunition ended up on the set.
Baldwin Just Wants To Clear His Name
Baldwin, best known for his roles in “30 Rock” and “The Hunt for Red October,” as well as his “Saturday Night Live” impression of former President Donald Trump, has called the killing a “tragic accident.”
He attempted to clear his name by suing the people who handled and supplied the loaded gun handed to him. Baldwin, who also worked on “Rust,” said he was told the gun was secure.
Baldwin said in his lawsuit that while he and Hutchins were rehearsing a scene, he pointed the gun at her, pulled back, and let the hammer go, which caused the gun to fire.
The New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator found that the shooting was an accident after they did an autopsy and looked at the police reports.
New Mexico’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau fined Rust Movie Productions the maximum after hearing a long list of safety problems. One of the problems was that production managers didn’t do much or anything when blank ammunition went off twice on the set before the fatal shooting.
Rust Movie Productions is still arguing about why regulators gave them a $137,000 fine because production managers on the set didn’t follow standard safety rules for guns.
Gun Safety Concerns Were Addressed On-set
Most of the investigation has focused on Gutierrez Reed, the armorer in charge of guns on the set and an outside ammunition supplier. Gutierrez Reed’s attorney claims she did not put a live round in the gun that killed Hutchins and believes she was the victim of sabotage. Authorities stated that they had found no evidence of this.
Investigators discovered 500 rounds of ammunition — a mix of blanks, dummy rounds, and what appeared to be live rounds — at the movie set on the outskirts of Santa Fe. According to industry experts, live rounds should never be used on set.
In April 2022, the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Department released many files, including a clip from Hutchins’s lapel camera showing him coming in and out of consciousness as a medical helicopter landed. The evidence also included interviews with witnesses, email threads, text conversations, lists of weapons, and hundreds of photos.
State workplace safety regulators stated that when “Rust” ceased filming, immediate gun-safety concerns were addressed and that new safety inspections would accompany a return to filming in New Mexico.
Hutchins’ family — widower Matthew Hutchins and son Andros — settled a lawsuit against producers in a deal that aims to restart filming with Matthew Hutchins as executive producer.
The death of Hutchins has changed how film crew unions and Hollywood producers talk about safety provisions in contracts. It has also caused other filmmakers to use computer-generated images of gunfire instead of real guns with blank ammunition to reduce risks.
SOURCE – (AP)
