(CN) — A New Mexico grand jury indicted actor Alec Baldwin Friday in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the film "Rust" in 2021.
Baldwin was indicted in January 2023 after he accidentally shot and killed Halyna Hutchins on the set of the Western film. New Mexico prosecutors dropped the charge three months later, though, following the emergence of evidence that suggested the prop gun Baldwin was using during rehearsal had been tampered with before he got his hands on it.
The gun was loaded with live rounds, not dummy rounds. Live rounds are not legally permitted on film sets.
But prosecutors brought the charge back before a New Mexico grand jury after a ballistics analysis of the gun found that Baldwin had to have pulled the trigger for the gun to fire – Baldwin has said he pulled the hammer back but didn’t pull the trigger, and the gun went off on its own.
Baldwin now once again faces a charge of involuntary manslaughter by negligent use of a firearm, a Class 4 felony. He faces an alternative charge of involuntary manslaughter without due caution or circumspection, depending on which charge prosecutors choose to pursue.
He faces up to 18 months in prison if convicted.
“We look forward to our day in court,” Baldwin’s attorney Luke Nikas wrote in an email on behalf of himself and attorney Alex Spiro.
The grand jury heard from several witnesses before making its decision including two crew members, one of whom witnessed the fatal shooting.
It’s still unclear how a live bullet made its way onto the movie set and into Baldwin’s prop gun, but New Mexico state workplace safety regulators fined the production company $100,000 for safety violations. The regulators had heard testimony that production managers took limited or no action to address two misfires on set before the fatal shooting.
The weapons supervisor on the movie set, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and evidence tampering in the case. It was Gutierrez-Reed who loaded the live round into Baldwin’s revolver, apparently thinking it was a dummy round. Investigators found five other live rounds on set.
Her trial is scheduled to begin in February. She has since sued her prop supplier for giving her live rounds advertised as dummy rounds.
While Baldwin says he didn’t pull the trigger, FBI tests concluded that simply cocking the hammer of the .45-caliber revolver isn’t enough to fire the weapon. The only way testers could get it to fire was by hitting the gun with a mallet while the hammer was down, or pulling the trigger when the hammer was cocked.
A second analysis led by Lucien Haag of Forensic Science Services in Arizona confirmed that the trigger must have been pulled for the gun to discharge.
In March, “Rust” assistant director and safety coordinator David Halls pleaded no contest to a charge of unsafe handling of a firearm and received a suspended sentence of six months of probation. He agreed to cooperate in the investigation of the shooting.
The 2021 shooting resulted in a series of lawsuits centered on accusations that the defendants were lax with safety standards. The cases have included wrongful death claims filed by members of Hutchins’ family. Baldwin and other defendants have denied accusations they were lax with safety standards.
The Santa Fe District Attorney's office declined to comment on the indictment. Special prosecutors Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis did not reply to a request for comment by press time.
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