Alec Baldwin will face manslaughter charges in the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of his film “Rust.”
Thursday’s announcement from the Santa Fe district attorney came more than a year after the fatal October 2021 shooting of Hutchins, caused by a live bullet fired from a prop gun by Baldwin, the film’s producer and star, while rehearsing a scene in the New Mexico production.
The film’s director, Joel Souza, was also injured in the shooting.
The FBI said in a forensic report following its investigation that the gun that killed Hutchins could not have been fired without someone pulling the trigger.
Baldwin and other “Rust” producers settled a lawsuit with the Hutchins family, which accused the team behind the film of “reckless conduct and cost-cutting measures,” last October.
“All of us believe that Halyna’s death was a terrible accident. I am grateful that the producers and the entertainment community have come together to pay tribute to Halyna’s final work,” said Matthew Hutchins, the 42-year-old husband of the cinematographer, in a statement following the deal.
After the shooting, Baldwin vowed never to work with real weapons on a television or movie set again.
In a television interview a few weeks after the incident, he claimed that “someone else” was “responsible” for Hutchins’ death.
“I feel like someone is responsible for what happened,” the 64-year-old actor said at the time, “and I can’t say who it is, but I know it’s not me.”
Filming for the movie was set to resume this month. It was not immediately clear if the charges against Baldwin would affect the production schedule.
