It’s been nearly one year since actor Alec Baldwin allegedly shot and killed cinematographer Haylna Hutchins on the set of the movie Rust. Also injured in the incident was director Joel Souza. The shooting happened on October 21, 2021 in Bonanza City, New Mexico. Baldwin was a producer on the film.
Now, new reports state that Baldwin is about to face criminal charges in the incident, which happened during a rehearsal, according to the NY Post and the Post Millenial.
Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies filed a request on August 30 with New Mexico’s Board of Finance to obtain $600,000 in funding for the prosecution of as many as four people who were involved with the movie set on the day of the shooting. Carmack-Altwies said in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” that she knows who loaded the gun, but has declined to name the person, as reported by the NY Post. She does not believe there was sabotage.
“I am ready to start the decision of what individuals will be criminally charged in this case,” she wrote.
Baldwin has not been jailed in the crime and remains free to live his life, likely due to his status as an actor, treatment that persons of a lower status would not be granted.
Just last week, Baldwin and his wife, Hilaria, welcomed the birth of their seventh baby together, a girl named Ilaria Catalina Irena Baldwin. He has an older child, Ireland, 26, with his first wife, actress Kim Basinger.
The FBI concluded that Baldwin did indeed pull the trigger on the gun which Baldwin believed was not loaded, according to reports at the time. However, he did not check the gun himself but relied on the prop person to do that for him, he said through his attorney, Luke Nikas, believing “the gun was safe.”
The FBI forensic report states the gun could not have been fired without the trigger being pulled, as reported by FOX News. The report states the gun was in working order and would not have fired a bullet unless it was cocked and the trigger pulled by the person holding it, who was Baldwin.
“The FBI report is being misconstrued,” Nikas said. “The gun fired in testing only one time – without having to pull the trigger – when the hammer was pulled back and the gun broke in two different places. The FBI was unable to fire the gun in any prior test, even when pulling the trigger, because it was in such poor condition.”
Rules when handling a firearm explicitly state that a person with a firearm is required to check to see if a gun is loaded.
News reports shortly after the shooting stated that there were multiple OHSA violations on the movie set. Props person and armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed allegedly had asked for “specific cross draw training which would include never having his finger on the trigger during the cross draw and never pointing the weapon at anyone. It also bears repeating that Hannah specifically asked to be called back into the Church if Baldwin was going to handle or operate a firearm so she could perform her armorer inspection and safety. Yet, neither Baldwin nor Halls nor anyone else in production called Hannah into the Church to perform her armorer duties and complete a final safety check before the fatal shooting, which also would have prevented this terrible tragedy.”
Reports say the gun used in the scene was supplied by Arizona weapons and props rental company PDQ Arm & Prop, owned by Seth Kenney, who was hired to be a mentor for Gutierrez-Reed. She is suing Kenney, stating he provided her with bullets that had live rounds mixed in with dummy ammunition. He denies that the ammunition came from his company.
Oddly enough, two attorneys who were representing Michael Sussman in a case involving former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sean Berkowitz and Michael Bosworth, work at the same law firm as that of Matt Hutchins, the husband and widower of the victim, Halyna Hutchins.
Baldwin issued a statement shortly after the shooting which read, “There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Haylna Hutchins, a wife, mother and deeply admired colleague of ours.”
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