Prosecutors seek to recharge Alec Baldwin in fatal ‘Rust’ shooting
Global News
The initial round of charges against Alec Baldwin were dropped earlier this year after prosecutors announced they had uncovered new evidence.
Special prosecutors said Tuesday they are seeking to recharge actor Alec Baldwin in the 2021 fatal shooting on a Western movie set in New Mexico by presenting evidence to a grand jury.
New Mexico-based prosecutors Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis said they’ll present evidence to grand jury within the next two months, noting that “additional facts” have come to light in the shooting on the set of the film Rust that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
In February, Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with the 2021 incident. On-set armourer Hanna Gutierrez-Reed was also charged.
At the time, prosecutors wrote that the 30 Rock star was not present for mandatory firearms training before filming on Rust began.
He was instead provided on-set guidance but prosecutors allege he was “distracted and talking on his cell phone to his family.” The training session was scheduled for an hour but was only 30 minutes long due to Baldwin’s “distraction” on the phone.
Baldwin, a co-producer of the film, was pointing a gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal on the film’s set on outside Santa Fe when the gun went off on Oct. 21, 2021, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza.
However, the charges were dropped in April, after “new facts were revealed that demand further investigation and forensic analysis,” the prosecutors wrote at the time.
They said they were informed the gun might have been modified before the shooting and malfunctioned. They later pivoted and began weighing whether to refile a charge against Baldwin after receiving a new analysis of the gun.
