Alec Baldwin indicted after Rust shooting tragedy

The 65-year-old actor has been charged with manslaughter.

While Rust has just started its official promotion in preparation for its theatrical release, Alex Baldwin is not completely out of the woods! The 65-year-old actor has just been indicted again, he is suspected of being the accidental author of the shot which unfortunately cost the life of the director of photography Halyna Hutchins.

Originally charged in January 2023, the charges were dropped three months later after Baldwin’s defense team raised questions about whether his Colt 45 was operational at the time of the shooting. Specifically, Hutchins was preparing to film a scene with Baldwin on a ranch near Santa Fe, New Mexico, in October 2021, when the gun went off. Baldwin maintains that he did not pull the trigger and that the shot went off on its own.

If convicted, Baldwin faces up to 18 months in prison.

“We are looking forward to our day at the tribunal,” lawyers forAlex Baldwin in a press release. Two special prosecutors, Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis, sent the gun for further forensic testing last summer. Their experts, Lucien and Michael Haag, reconstructed the weapon – which had been broken during FBI testing – and concluded that it could only have been activated by pulling the trigger. “This fatal incident was the result of the hammer being manually retracted to its fully rearward and cocked position, followed, at some point, by the pulling or depressing rearward of the trigger.” , the report concludes. “Although Alec Baldwin repeatedly denies pulling the trigger, based on the tests, findings, and observations reported here, the trigger must have been pulled or depressed sufficiently to release the hammer fully cocked or retracted from the proof revolver.”

The film’s gunsmith, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, is scheduled to go on trial Feb. 21 on charges of involuntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence. Gutierrez Reed mistakenly loaded a live round into Baldwin’s gun, which was supposed to contain only blank rounds. It is still unclear how the live bullets got mixed with the dummy bullets on the board.