- Alec Baldwin was charged Tuesday in connection with the fatal "Rust" shooting.
- Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the set's armorer, was charged with the same counts.
The actor Alec Baldwin was criminally charged with involuntary manslaughter Tuesday in connection to the October 2021 accidental shooting of the cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the movie set of "Rust," according to court documents.
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer in charge of weapons on the Santa Fe, New Mexico, set, has also been charged with involuntary manslaughter. Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed each face two charges of involuntary manslaughter.
Baldwin was practicing a scene on the set of "Rust," which he is starring in and producing, when the weapon he was holding fired and fatally struck Hutchins and injured the film's director, Joel Souza.
Robert Shilling, a special investigator for New Mexico's First Judicial District Attorney's Office, wrote in a statement of probable cause filed Tuesday that Baldwin "acted with reckless disregard and/or more than mere negligence in this incident."
"This reckless deviation from known standards and practice and protocol directly caused the fatal shooting," Shilling wrote, adding that Baldwin "acted with willful disregard of the safety of others and in a manner that endangered other people and he clearly should have known the danger of his actions which led to the death of Hutchins."
Shilling additionally wrote that Baldwin "handled the weapon in a negligent manner."
New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies first announced earlier this month that she was charging Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed.
Both face more than six years behind bars if convicted of the more serious charge.
"After a thorough review of the evidence and the laws of the state of New Mexico, I have determined that there is sufficient evidence to file criminal charges against Alec Baldwin and other members of the 'Rust' film crew," Carmack-Altwies said earlier this month. "On my watch, no one is above the law, and everyone deserves justice."
When news first broke of the criminal charges, Luke Nikas, an attorney for Baldwin, told Insider the decision to bring charges against the actor "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," Nikas said. "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."
An attorney for Gutierrez-Reed said earlier this month that the charges "are the result of a very flawed investigation, and an inaccurate understanding of the full facts."
"Hannah is, and has always been, very emotional and sad about this tragic accident. But she did not commit involuntary manslaughter," the lawyer Jason Bowles said in a statement, adding, "We intend to bring the full truth to light and believe Hannah will be exonerated of wrongdoing by a jury."
When the impending charges against Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed were first announced, prosecutors said they cut a plea deal with David Halls, the film's assistant director, who pleaded guilty to negligent use of a deadly weapon.
Baldwin faces more than 6 years in jail
The two charges Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed face are involuntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter in the commission of a lawful act.
They are being "charged in the alternative," which means that a jury can find each of them guilty of only one of those charges.
The charges have different burdens of proof. For involuntary manslaughter, prosecutors must prove there was underlying negligence that led to Hutchins' death. For the other charge, they must prove more than simple negligence.
Both charges carry a punishment of up to 18 months behind bars. But the second charge also carries a firearms enhancement which has a mandatory additional sentence of five years, meaning Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed face a maximum sentence of 6-and-a-half years in jail.
A tragic accident
The shooting happened as Baldwin was practicing a cross-draw technique that involved his pointing a Colt .45 revolver at a camera on the Bonanza Creek Ranch set, according to affidavits previously released by the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office.
A bullet from the gun struck Hutchins, a married mother of one, mortally wounding her. The movie's director, Souza, was also injured by the bullet.
According to affidavits that were included in search-warrant documents, the prop gun was one of three "set up" by the film's armorer, Gutierrez-Reed, and left on a cart.
The movie's assistant director, Halls, picked up the firearm and took it to Baldwin for a scene inside a church on the set, according to the police documents. As Halls handed the gun to Baldwin, he said "cold gun," indicating that the gun didn't contain any live rounds, according to the documents. Baldwin then fired the gun.
It's unclear how a live round ended up in the gun.
Baldwin told ABC News two months after the shooting that he never pulled the trigger, but an FBI report countered that, saying "the revolver could not be made to fire without a pull of the trigger."
In the days after the fatal shooting, scrutiny focused on Gutierrez-Reed, with reports from The Daily Beast and The Wrap suggesting she exhibited poor gun safety on both the set of "Rust" and a prior project.
Gutierrez-Reed filed a lawsuit against the prop supplier PDQ Arm & Prop LLC in January 2022, saying the company caused Hutchins' death by providing a box to the set that contained live ammunition mixed with dummy rounds. Seth Kenney, the owner of PDQ Arm & Prop LLC, went on "Good Morning America" in December 2021 and denied the live rounds came from his company.
Baldwin, who has been named as a defendant in multiple lawsuits in the aftermath of the shooting, filed a lawsuit late last year to "clear his name" over the incident.
In the suit, Baldwin argued that Hutchins died because of the negligence of other crew members on the set of the low-budget movie and that he was told the gun handed to him was safe.
Hutchins' husband, Matthew Hutchins, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Baldwin and other crew members in February 2022, alleging that the "Rust" producers cut corners on safety procedures and that Baldwin "recklessly shot and killed" Hutchins.
In October 2022, it was announced that the production company behind "Rust" and the Hutchins family reached an undisclosed settlement in the wrongful-death suit. Matthew Hutchins announced at the time that he would serve as an executive producer for the movie.
Correction: February 16, 2023: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the maximum sentence Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed face. They face a maximum sentence of 6-and-a-half years in jail if convicted of the most serious charge.