Grand jury in New Mexico charged the actor for a shooting on Rust set that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins
Actor Alec Baldwin is facing a new involuntary manslaughter charge over the 2021 fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the movie Rust.
A Santa Fe, New Mexico, grand jury indicted Baldwin on Friday, months after prosecutors had dismissed the same criminal charge against him.
During an October 2021 rehearsal on the set of Rust, a western drama, Baldwin was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins when it went off, fatally striking her and wounding Joel Souza, the film’s director.
Baldwin, a co-producer and star of the film, has said he did not pull the trigger, but pulled back the hammer of the gun before it fired.
Last April, special prosecutors dismissed the involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin, saying the firearm might have been modified prior to the shooting and malfunctioned and that forensic analysis was warranted. But in August, prosecutors said they were considering re-filing the charges after a new analysis of the weapon was completed.
I respectfully disagree. If you touch a gun, you are responsible. If you mishandle a gun, you are responsible. If the gun fires while in your hand, you are responsible. That’s firearms 101.
Unless of course, you’re on a movie set and the armorer has called it a cold gun and pointing it towards people is part of the movie.
Then it might be the fault of the person who knowingly co-mingled live and blank ammo in gross disregard for any kind of safety procedures.
Yes if you are handling a firearm, you have a responsibility to know safety procedures. But in film, obviously you have different familiarity levels with weapon handling. That’s why you hire an armorer who enforces safety procedures. So non-shooter actors handle prop weapons with blanks.
Now, arguably as a co-producer Alec may have had some culpability in hiring an unqualified armorer? Somehow I doubt he was heavily involved in those kind of nitty gritty hiring decisions. Seems significantly more plausible that those decisions were made by the actual producers who work for a living and not the a-lister who gets titled co-producer for SAGAFTRA billing purposes…
Call me crazy, I know.
All valid points and I agree. But that gun didn’t point itself at another person. And it sure didn’t pull its own trigger.