Suits: Expensive lawyers will help Alec Baldwin in ‘Rust’ shooting case
Jan 19, 2023, 2:19 PM
FILE - Actor Alec Baldwin attends a news conference at United Nations headquarters, on Sept. 21, 2015. A Santa Fe district attorney is prepared to announce whether to press charges in the fatal 2021 film-set shooting of a cinematographer by actor Baldwin during a rehearsal on the set of the Western movie “Rust.” Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said a decision will be announced Thursday morning, Jan. 19, 2022, in a statement and on social media platforms. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
(AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
Prosecutors announced Thursday they plan to charge actor Alec Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed for the 2021 shooting and death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
On Oct. 21, 2021, a loaded firearm was accidentally fired on the set of the western “Rust,” killing Hutchins and injuring the film’s director Joel Souza. Baldwin claimed that the gun went off during a dress rehearsal for “Rust” and that he didn’t pull the trigger, ABC News reported.
The film’s assistant director, David Halls, signed a plea agreement for one charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon. As part of the agreement, Halls got a suspended sentence and six months of probation, officials said.
Mary Carmack-Altwies, district attorney for New Mexico’s first judicial district, and “Rust” special prosecutor Andrea Reeb shared the decision to pursue two charges of involuntary manslaughter for both Baldin and Gutierrez Reed in a statement at 9 a.m. Thursday.
“If any one of these three people — Alec Baldwin, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, or David Halls — had done their job, Halyna Hutchins would be alive today. It’s that simple,” Reeb said in a statement. “The evidence clearly shows a pattern of criminal disregard for safety on the ‘Rust’ film set.”
Carmack-Altwies said that Baldwin had to have pulled the trigger, pointing to an FBI forensic report that found the same.
Bryan Suits discussed the charges and theorized that Baldwin has too much money for lawyers to effectively be prosecuted for the shooting.
“The older, puffed up, entitled Alec Baldwin lives in a world where he held a gun and didn’t check if it was loaded or not and killed his director of photography,” Suits said. “If you’re a county, and you’re not made of money, and Santa Fe, New Mexico is not made of money, is this really worth it? I think you’ve got a slam dunk with the armorer, but I mean, Alec Baldwin may employ a lawyer or two for this, and he’s going to have a lot of money.”
You can listen to Bryan’s full discussion on the shooting and the charges here:
Listen to the Bryan Suits Show weekday mornings from 6–9 a.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here.
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