Alec Baldwin to be charged in fatal 'Rust' shooting

As a prosecutor pursues involuntary manslaughter charges against actor Alec Baldwin and the armorer from the set of the film "Rust," the tragic on-set shooting has renewed discussions about safety in Hollywood productions.

The death of 42-year-old Halyna Hutchins is the latest on-set tragedy for an industry that strives for safety while also portraying action-packed stories.

There have been multiple cases of crew members and stunt people dying at work, including a woman who died performing stunts on the set of “Deadpool 2” in 2017.

Cast members have also died from accidents during production including:

Brandon Lee

The son of the renowned martial arts master and actor Bruce Lee, the 28-year-old was filming the final scenes of the movie “The Crow” when he died after being shot with a prop gun in 1993.

Dummy bullets had been replaced with cardboard wadding, but a bullet fragment had broken off and remained in the gun. That metal tip from the dummy bullet hit Lee’s abdomen.

Lee’s family released a statement following Hutchins death.

“Our hearts go out to the family of Halyna Hutchins and to Joel Souza and all involved in the incident on 'Rust,'” the statement read. “No one should ever be killed by a gun on a film set. Period.”

Jon-Erik Hexum

Jon-Erik Hexum became famous in 1982 after snagging the lead role of Phineas Bogg in the NBC series “Voyagers!”

The tall and strikingly handsome actor was a rising star and soon cast to play Mac Harper, a CIA operative posing as a male model in the TV series “Cover Up.”

While filming, Hexum reportedly was playing around with a prop gun from a scene and shot himself in the head.

Vic Morrow

Victor Morrow was tragically killed while filming “Twilight Zone: The Movie” in 1982.

The actor and two child actors, 7-year-old Myca Dinh Le and 6-year-old Renee Shin-Yi Chen, were being filmed fleeing from a Vietnamese village during the Vietnam war while a US Army helicopter hovered over them.

The chopper crashed following a pyrotechnic explosion, landing on Morrow, 53, and the children, who also died.

The film's director, the pilot and three others were charged with involuntary manslaughter. They were all acquitted following a high-profile trial that lasted almost nine months.

Lisa Torraco, the attorney of assistant director Dave Halls, released the following statement Thursday.

“Absent no charges at all, this is the best outcome for Mr. Halls and the case,” Torraco said. “He can now put this matter behind him and allow the focus of this tragedy to be on the shooting victims and changing the industry so this type of accident will never happen again."

Halls, who handed the gun to Alec Baldwin before the fatal shooting, signed a plea agreement “for the charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon,” the district attorney’s office announced Thursday. Prosecutors said the terms of that deal include six months of probation and a suspended sentence.

In October 2021, a group gathered to film on the set for the Old Western-style movie "Rust" at Bonanza Creek Ranch outside Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Fifteen months later, cinematographer Halyna Hutchins is dead, director Joel Souza was injured and two people, including star actor Alec Baldwin, face criminal charges. Another has already agreed to a plea deal on a charge with no recommended prison time.

Here’s a look at the key people on the set of the movie when the fatal gunshot was fired:

• Halyna Hutchins was the cinematographer of "Rust" who was fatally shot during a rehearsal for the movie. She was standing behind the camera when she was struck by a live round of ammunition fired from a prop gun held by Baldwin. She was airlifted to a hospital some 55 miles away in Albuquerque, where she was pronounced dead. In the wake of the charges, her family thanked the prosecutors for their decision.
• Alec Baldwin was the star actor and a producer of “Rust,” who was holding the gun that shot and killed Hutchins. In the scene, Baldwin was demonstrating a “cross draw” – pulling a gun from a holster on the opposite side of his body from his draw hand. The scene required him to point the gun toward the camera. He has maintained he was not aware the gun he fired on set contained a live round, and he has said he did not pull the trigger of the gun. Baldwin was charged Thursday with two counts of involuntary manslaughter.
• Hannah Gutierrez Reed worked as the armorer and props assistant for “Rust” and in that role handled weapons on set. Her attorney has said she loaded the firearm used in the shooting with what she believed to be dummy ammo from a box of dummy rounds. She then handed the firearm to assistant director David Halls, according to her attorneys. After the shooting, she sued the movie’s gun and ammunition supplier and alleged she had been sold a cache of dummy ammunition with live rounds mixed in. She was charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter on Thursday.
• David Halls, the assistant director of the film, was identified as the man who handed the gun to Baldwin before the fatal shooting. He signed a plea agreement “for the charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon,” the district attorney’s office announced Thursday. Prosecutors said the terms of that deal include six months of probation.
• Joel Souza, the 48-year-old director of “Rust,” suffered a gunshot wound to his right shoulder and survived. Charges will not be filed against him, prosecutors said.

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Prosecutors plan to charge actor Alec Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter in the deadly 2021 “Rust” film shooting. Set armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed will also be charged.

If you haven't been following the story, you can start by reading this timeline of how the on-set tragedy unfolded. And here's a roundup of today's major developments:

• Manslaughter charges: The district attorney in Santa Fe, New Mexico, plans to charge both Baldwin and Gutierrez Reed with involuntary manslaughter. A jury will be asked whether the two are guilty, with an option to choose between two legal definitions of the crime.
• Potential sentencing: That choice between manslaughter definitions could have a major impact on the penalty, should either defendant be found guilty. While each is punishable by up to 18 months in jail and a $5,000 fine, a firearm enhancement accompanying one definition would be punishable by a mandatory five years in jail.
• Both defendants deny the charges: Baldwin's attorney called the decision a "miscarriage of justice." He repeated the actor's assertion that he had no reason to believe there was a live bullet in the gun, laying blame for the tragedy on others involved in the production. Gutierrez Reed's lawyer said the charges were "absolutely wrong" and voiced confidence a jury would not find her guilty.
• Prosecutor outlines her reasoning: District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies' case came down to negligence. She said "Rust," on which Baldwin was also the producer, had a very "fast and loose set." Baldwin should have checked the gun before the scene started, the prosecutor argued, and she also noted that people had complained about safety issues on set in the days before the tragedy.
• What happens next: Carmack-Altwies told CNN she'll formally file the charges "before the end of this month," but that her office will not request an arrest of Baldwin and Gutierrez Reed. The two will be required at an initial court appearance, which they may do by video. The district attorney said she does not plan to charge anyone else involved in the production.

CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig said the "Rust" fatal shooting case is not clear-cut negligence and includes factual issues.

First of all, Honig said, New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies told CNN that she doesn't know — and "we might not ever know" — how live rounds got onto the set.

"That's a major factual issue. The defense lawyer is going to stand in front of a jury someday and say, 'They want you to convict my client and they can't even tell you how those live rounds got there,'" Honig told CNN's Victor Blackwell and Alisyn Camerota.  

Secondly, the incident happened on a movie set, and "most normal people do not know what the norms are on a movie set," he said.

So the expertise of prop masters are heavily relied upon, but even those experts have different views on what the obligations of actors and crew members are on set, Honig said.

"Remember, this is a criminal case. You need all 12 jurors to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. So I'm not saying that there's no chance here, but this is a really difficult case for the prosecution," he added.

Honig also said he was "stunned" that the district attorney decided to charge Alec Baldwin as both an actor and producer.

"The question about a producer — that gets into the questions of what exactly was Alec Baldwin's job, what were his responsibilities as it relates to the many other directors, producers, professionals on that set — and look, sometimes people are producers in name ... but are not actually in charge of things in a hands-on way," he continued.

"All of these are complex factual issues. ... This is not a civil proceeding. This is a criminal proceeding. There is the highest burden in our legal system on prosecutors. They have to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt and unanimously to the jury. It's never easy, and I think it's going to be particularly difficult here," he added.

Actor Alec Baldwin and his legal team feel "blindsided" by today's charges, his attorney Luke Nikas told CNN in a statement Thursday.

They were not given any indication Baldwin would face criminal charges and say they "learned of the charges in the media," according to Nikas.

In her first televised interview after announcing the charging decisions, New Mexico’s First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies told CNN’s Josh Campbell her office was in “almost constant contact” with the opposing parties' attorneys “for about the last six weeks.”

“They didn’t know exactly what was coming, but they were aware that we were contemplating charges and they were aware of what the contemplated charges were,” she said.

Earlier Thursday, Nikas said the decision to charge "distorts Halyna Hutchins’ tragic death and represents a terrible miscarriage of justice."

“Mr. Baldwin had no reason to believe there was a live bullet in the gun — or anywhere on the movie set. He relied on the professionals with whom he worked, who assured him the gun did not have live rounds. We will fight these charges, and we will win,” Nikas said.

Many other actors have said they “always check their guns or have someone check it front of them,” New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies told CNN shortly after announcing her intention of charging actor Alec Baldwin and film armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed with involuntary manslaughter.

She noted that some of those actors were even "A-list" celebrities.

"Every person that handles a gun has a duty to make sure that if they're going to handle that gun, point it at someone and pull the trigger that it is not going to fire a projectile and kill someone," she said.

"An actor does not get a free pass just because they are an actor. That is what is so important. We are saying here in New Mexico, that everyone is equal under the law," she added.

Carmack-Altwies said there were live rounds mixed in with dummy rounds and crews were not checking ammunition regularly.

Somehow, a live round got loaded into the gun that was handed to Baldwin.

Baldwin failing to check the gun before firing it is a key piece of information that prosecutors are using to argue that he was negligent about the safety standard, Carmack-Altwies said. Negligence is an important part of the involuntary manslaughter charge, according to CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams.

Overall, there was a “lack of safety and safety standards on set," the district attorney said.

The family of Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer killed on the "Rust" movie set, said they support the charges that are expected to be filed against actor Alec Baldwin and film armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed.

“It is a comfort to the family that, in New Mexico, no one is above the law,��� according to the statement.

Attorney Brian J. Panish, on behalf of the Hutchins family, issued the following statement:

"We want to thank the Santa Fe Sheriff and the District Attorney for concluding their thorough investigation and determining that charges for involuntary manslaughter are warranted for the killing of Halyna Hutchins with conscious disregard for human life. Our independent investigation also supports that charges are warranted. It is a comfort to the family that, in New Mexico, no one is above the law. We support the charges, will fully cooperate with this prosecution, and fervently hope the justice system works to protect the public and hold accountable those who break the law."

The deadly shooting on the set of "Rust" in Santa Fe, New Mexico, took place in October 2021.

The film set shooting resulted in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins after she was struck by a live round of ammunition fired from a prop gun held by Alec Baldwin.

Here's a look at the scene following the shooting: