Actor Alec Baldwin and set armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed were charged with involuntary manslaughter on Tuesday in the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Western movie “Rust” in 2021, a New Mexico prosecutor’s spokesman said.
District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies had announced January 19 that she would file the charges by month’s end, following months of speculation she would determine she had evidence Baldwin showed criminal disregard for safety when a revolver with which he was rehearsing fired a live round that killed Hutchins.
Heather Brewer, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office, said the district attorney had filed the charges against Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed.
The actor has denied responsibility for the shooting, saying he cocked the revolver but never pulled the trigger and that it was the job of Gutierrez-Reed and other weapons’ professionals to ensure it was unloaded.
Gutierrez-Reed said she checked the rounds she loaded into the gun were dummies before handing it to first assistant director Dave Halls. Halls handed it to Baldwin, telling him it was a “cold gun,” meaning it did not contain an explosive charge, according to police.
Halls has signed a plea deal for a misdemeanor charge and is expected to cooperate with the prosecution.
On December 13, Halls testified to New Mexico’s worker safety bureau that Gutierrez-Reed handed the gun to Baldwin and that he never declared the Pietta reproduction Colt .45 a “cold gun.”
Industry-wide firearms safety guidelines instruct actors to assume a firearm is loaded with blank ammunition. Live ammunition is strictly forbidden on sets.