On Thursday, the Santa Fe District Attorney, Mary Carmack-Altwies, will announce whether charges will be brought against actor Alec Baldwin for the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the Western film “Rust” in 2021.
The announcement will be made through a statement and social media, without any public appearances by prosecutors. According to a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, the announcement will be made in a solemn manner in keeping with the office’s commitment to upholding the integrity of the judicial process and respecting the victim’s family.
The cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, died from a gunshot wound on the set of the film on October 21, 2021, and the director, Joel Souza, was also injured.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff, Adan Mendoza, who led the initial investigation, described a degree of neglect on the film set but left decisions about potential criminal charges to the prosecutors. Baldwin has described the incident as a tragic accident.
Alec Baldwin, the actor involved in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the Western film “Rust” in 2021, sought to clear his name by suing people involved in handling and supplying the loaded gun that was handed to him on set. Baldwin, who was also a co-producer on the film, stated that he was told the gun was safe. In his lawsuit, Baldwin stated that during a rehearsal for a scene, he pointed the gun in the direction of the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, and pulled back and released the hammer of the weapon, which discharged.
New Mexico’s Office of the Medical Investigator determined that the shooting was an accident following an autopsy and a review of law enforcement reports. However, New Mexico’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau has levied the maximum fine against Rust Movie Productions based on a narrative of safety failures, including testimony that production managers took limited or no action to address two misfires of blank ammunition on the set prior to the fatal shooting. Rust Movie Productions continues to challenge the basis of the fine.
The armorer who oversaw firearms on the set, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, has been the subject of much scrutiny in the case, along with an independent ammunition supplier. An attorney for Gutierrez Reed has stated that she did not put a live round in the gun that killed Hutchins and she believes she was the victim of sabotage. Authorities said they have found no evidence of that.
In April 2022, the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Department released a trove of files, including lapel camera video of the mortally wounded Hutchins slipping in and out of consciousness as a medical helicopter arrived. Witness interrogations, email threads, text conversations, inventories of ammunition and hundreds of photographs rounded out that collection of evidence. State workplace safety regulators stated that immediate gun-safety concerns were addressed when “Rust” ceased filming and that a return to filming in New Mexico would be accompanied by new safety inspections. The family of Hutchins settled a lawsuit against producers under an agreement that aims to restart filming with Matthew Hutchins’ involvement as executive producer. Hutchins’ death has influenced negotiations over safety provisions in film crew union contracts with Hollywood producers and spurred other filmmakers to choose computer-generated imagery of gunfire rather than real weapons with blank ammunition to minimize risks.