By all accounts, it was an accident everyone saw coming, but the questions and chaos surrounding the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins have only grown more numerous in the 18 months since the fatal incident — especially now that charges against Alec Baldwin have been dropped.
Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies announced on January 19, 2023, that the county would bring charges against Alec Baldwin for the cinematographer’s death. Hutchins was killed in October 2021 on a ranch near Santa Fe, after a prop gun Baldwin was holding accidentally discharged while filming the movie Rust. The chief weapons handler for the film was also charged, and the film’s director Joel Souza was also non-fatally injured in the shooting.
Carmack-Altwies announced in a brief public statement that Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed would each be charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter for their roles in Hutchins’s death.
The charges carried separate penalties of up to five years or 18 months in prison. On January 31, Baldwin was formally charged.
“On my watch, no one is above the law, and everyone deserves justice,” Carmack-Altwies stated in her initial press conference.
“We’re trying to definitely make it clear that everybody’s equal under the law, including A-list actors like Alec Baldwin,” special prosecutor Andrea Reeb added to the New York Times.
On April 20, however, Baldwin walked away from the affair unscathed when his attorneys announced prosecutors had dropped all charges against him.
In a public statement, attorneys Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro said they were “pleased with the decision to dismiss the case against Alec Baldwin and we encourage a proper investigation into the facts and circumstances of this tragic accident.”
Charges against Gutierrez-Reed remained in place, even though the armorer spent the weeks leading up to the shooting warning her supervisors of unsafe conditions on set while seeking more…
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