Alec Baldwin to be charged with involuntary manslaughter

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Actor and director Alec Baldwin will be charged with involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Baldwin’s movie “Rust,” sources have said.

The news came Thursday in an exclusive, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Prosecutors plan to charge Alec Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the movie “Rust” in New Mexico in 2021, according to a person with knowledge of the investigation. The film’s armorer overseeing weapons, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, is also expected to be charged with involuntary manslaughter in the incident, according to the person.

The film’s first assistant director, David Halls, has agreed to plead guilty to the charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon, according to the person. Santa Fe-area District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies plans to announce the charges Thursday morning, the person said, and the charges are expected to be filed by the end of the month.

The district attorney who has been investigating the case, Mary Carmack-Altwies, said that a decision on whether or not anyone faces charges could be announced on Thursday, Fox News reported.

“Regardless of the District Attorney’s decision, the announcement will be a solemn occasion, made in a manner keeping with the office’s commitment to upholding the integrity of the judicial process and respecting the victim’s family,” a spokesperson for the district attorney, Heather Brewer, said.

Hutchins died when a gun actor Alec Baldwin was holding fired while practicing a scene on Oct. 21, 2021. The group had been rehearsing in a small church on the Bonanza Creek Ranch set.

Baldwin has maintained that he did not pull the trigger of the gun — once during a primetime interview shortly following the deadly shooting and again on a podcast episode. The actor originally said he had pulled the hammer of the gun back as far as he could and released it, but did not pull the trigger.

The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department has spent the last year investigating how live rounds made it onto the movie set. Armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed and assistant director Dave Halls were the only other crew members believed to have handled the gun that fired on set.

As many as four people, including Baldwin, could potentially face charges in the shooting death of Halyna Hutchins, the Santa Fe County District Attorney’s Office said, The New York Times reported in September.

The district attorney’s office speculated on the possible charges in a request to state officials late last month that asked for additional funding to cover the costs that would be incurred if charges were brought, which would result in several high-profile trials.

While the district attorney, Mary Carmack-Altwies, made it clear in her funding request that her office had not yet decided whether to bring charges — “If charges are warranted,” she began one sentence — the funding request also went into greater detail than she has in the past, noting that her office could charge up to four people.

A document attached to the funding request said, “One of the possible defendants is well-known movie actor Alec Baldwin.”

In September, after denying he had pulled the trigger of the gun, the FBI found that Baldwin fired the gun that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza in October 2021, ABC News reported.

The actor has insisted that he did not pull the trigger, but the report said that there was no way the bullet could have been fired if the trigger was not pulled.

With the hammer in the quarter- and half-cock positions, the gun “could not be made to fire without a pull of the trigger,” the report stated.

With the hammer fully cocked, the gun “could not be made to fire without a pull of the trigger while the working internal components were intact and functional,” the report stated.

With the hammer de-cocked on a loaded chamber, the gun was able to

detonate a primer “without a pull of the trigger when the hammer was struck directly,” which is normal for this type of revolver, the report stated.

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