Murder on the set, Alec Baldwin faces up to five in prison
Alec Baldwin faces up to five years in prison for manslaughter. The accusation, formalized by the Santa Fe prosecutor’s office, concerns the killing of the director of photography Halyna Hutchins, shot to death with a pistol during the filming of the film “Rust”, of which Baldwin was producer as well as star. The actor himself had pulled the trigger, unaware that the weapon was loaded with a real bullet.
Alongside the star, production gunsmith Hannah Gutierrez-Reid was also indicted, while assistant director David Halls negotiated a sentence of probation.
According to the prosecution, the tragedy would not have occurred if Baldwin had performed the mandatory security checks with co-accused Gutierres-Reid and if he had not pointed the gun at Hutchins. “This reckless departure from known standards, practice and protocol directly caused the fatal shooting,” said Robert Shilling, investigator for the Santa Fe prosecutor’s office, according to which Baldwin, he was distracted during firearms training because he was on the phone with family members. “Baldwin knew that the first rule of gun safety is never to point a gun at someone you don’t intend to shoot,” Shilling added. In his testimony, Gutierrez-Reid, then 25, complained that Baldwin and the crew didn’t take her insistence on training seriously. “With us, no one is above the law,” said prosecutor Mary Carmack-Altwies.
In the meantime, the shooting of the film continues, one year and three months after the events. Production has moved from New Mexico to California but Joel Souza is still directing after he was grazed in the accident of October 2021. Matthew Hutchins, Halyna’s widower, became executive producer of the film, but the real weapons have disappeared from the set.
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