Alec Baldwin might face justice sometime soon.
Prosecutors had dropped manslaughter charges against the leftist, hate-Trump actor in connection with the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in October 2021.
At issue was whether Baldwin pulled the trigger on the gun with which he shot the poor woman. Since Day 1, Baldwin has denied pulling the trigger, which critics said was nonsense. Now, a new forensics report says he had to have pulled the trigger.
So Baldwin might see the inside of a jail cell after all.
The Shooting and Charges
Trouble began for the temperamental 64-year-old thespian when he shot Hutchins, then 42, on October 21, 2021. They were rehearsing for Rust, a Western in which Baldwin plays an aging outlaw who emerges from hiding to save his 13-year-old grandson from hanging for murder.
The actor claimed he pulled back the hammer on the single-action Colt .45 at Hutchins’ direction. When he let it go, “the gun went off.”
How the gun wound up loaded with a live round is another question. Also facing charges is the movie’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the then 24-year-old who handed Baldwin the revolver.
For his part, Baldwin has consistently denied he pulled the trigger.
“Well, the trigger wasn’t pulled, I didn’t pull the trigger,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
“So you never pulled the trigger?” the former Clinton legman asked.
Baldwin expostulated:
No, no, no, no, no. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them, never. Never. That was the training that I had. You don’t point a gun at me and pull the trigger. On day one of my instruction in this business, people said to me, “Never take a gun and go click, click, click, click, click. Because even though it’s incremental, you damage the firing pin on the gun if you do that, don’t do that.”
The FBI’s report said otherwise, that Baldwin had to have pulled the trigger.
The gun “could not be made to fire without a pull of the trigger,” the bureau concluded. With the hammer de-cocked on a loaded chamber, the gun was able to detonate a primer “without a pull of the trigger when the hammer was struck directly,” which is normal for this type of revolver, the report stated.
Experts concluded likewise when they spoke to the media.
Despite that, and citing new evidence, prosecutors dismissed the case against Baldwin. But that “decision does not absolve Mr. Baldwin of criminal culpability and charges may be refiled,” they said.
New Report
That’s where the new forensic report comes in.
“The special prosecutors on the case, Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis, commissioned a new forensic examination of the gun and have been waiting on the results before deciding whether to refile the charges,” Variety reported. “The report, by Lucien and Michael Haag, was submitted to them earlier this month and released Tuesday in a public court filing.”
Though FBI analysts broke the gun during their tests, the Haags repaired it and concluded that Baldwin must have pulled the trigger, the entertainment website continued:
“This fatal incident was the consequence of the hammer being manually retracted to its fully rearward and cocked position followed, at some point, by the pull or rearward depression of the trigger,” the reported concluded. “Although Alec Baldwin repeatedly denies pulling the trigger, given the tests, findings and observations reported here, the trigger had to be pulled or depressed sufficiently to release the fully cocked or retracted hammer of the evidence revolver.”
The prosecutors had previously stated that Baldwin will be charged again if the gun was working properly.
“If it is determined that the gun did not malfunction, charges against Mr. Baldwin will proceed,” they wrote in a filing in June.
As for Reed, her legal woes include not only an involuntary manslaughter charge but also evidence tampering. She blamed someone else for the fatal mistake with the live round.
Negligence?
The original indictment accused Baldwin of criminal negligence. The movie set itself was a loaded gun just waiting to go off. Baldwin was partly responsible for that, prosecutors alleged, because he is co-producer of the movie, now filming in Montana.
Though Baldwin has been involved in at least 40 movies with firearms, he did not follow standard safety protocols, prosecutors alleged, which required Reed “to show the actor the firearm, pull the bullets out in front of the actor, and demonstrate there are no live rounds (but dummies) in the firearm. BALDWIN knows this is standard safety protocol as he has mentioned it in media interviews and in law enforcement interviews. [REED] did not do this protocol in front of BALDWIN. BALDWIN did not object to this action.”
Baldwin “was in a position” to ensure proper safety training, and failure to do so is considered “reckless in the industry,” prosecutors alleged.
Even permitting Reed near the set was a bad idea. The then-24-year-old “possessed no certification or certifiable training, or union ‘card’“ to be an armorer, and “she admitted she was the armorer for only one (1) film prior to this production,” prosecutors alleged.
Reed was “inexperienced and unqualified,” yet Baldwin hired her anyway.
Reed was also assistant prop master, which distracted her from her key job as armorer, a violation of industry standards that led to the shooting.
Worse still, Prop Master Sarah Zachary nearly blew off her foot when she accidentally discharged a gun, prosecutors alleged. Yet Baldwin did not require “remedial training, demotion, removal from the set, [or] termination.”
Baldwin even confessed to detectives that he didn’t check the gun.
Prosecutors alleged that he “failed to demand at least two (2) safety checks between the armorer and himself…. Had BALDWIN performed the required safety checks with the armorer, REED, this tragedy would not have occurred.”
If Baldwin lands behind bars, he can resurrect his caricature of POTUS 45 Donald Trump for fellow inmates.
