Alec Baldwin charged with involuntary manslaughter over tragic shooting on set

While shooting for the film Rust, Alec Baldwin was on his phone during firearms training where he shot and killed a cinematographer, prosecutors said, and has been charged him with involuntary manslaughter.

Alec Baldwin

Alec Baldwin is in deep legal trouble as the charge of involuntary manslaughter has been brought against him after he tragically shot and killed a cinematographer on the sets of Rust.

Accoding to documents released on Tuesday, as reported by the BBC, Baldwin was ‘distracted’ talking to his family on his phone during the training session on how to handle the prop gun, Robert Shilling, a special investigator for the district attorney's office, wrote in his statement of probable cause filed with the manslaughter charges.

The documents pertaining to the charges against the actor, which were first announced on January 19, accused him of ‘many instances of extremely reckless acts’. Santa Fe's District Attorney's Office has brought the charge against Alec Baldwin.

The cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, died on the set of Rust in New Mexico after Alec Baldwin allegedly fired a prop gun.

Had Baldwin performed the mandatory safety checks with armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed and not pointed the gun at Hutchins, the ‘tragedy would not have occurred’, prosecutor Shilling argued in his court filings.

"This reckless deviation from known standards and practice and protocol directly caused the fatal shooting... Baldwin knew the first rule of gun safety is never point a gun at someone you don't intend on shooting,"Shilling said, according to the BBC.

Alec Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed's lawyers have said that they plan to fight the charges in court.

However, if found guilty, both Alec Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed could face up to 18 months in prison with a fine of $5,000 American dollars. The duo will be tried by a jury and not a judge, according to prosecutors quoted in the court documents.

Halyna Hutchins died in a hospital after she was fatally shot in the chest by a prop gun allegedly fired by Alec Baldwin during a rehearsal at the Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe.

In the past, Baldwin had denied responsibility for the shooting and said in interviews that he did not pull the trigger on the gun and that it had ‘gone off’ on its own, prosecutors alleged.

However, photos and videos from the Rust shooting show that Alec Baldwin practising drawing and firing the weapon with his finger inside the trigger guard instead of the trigger several times, according to prosecutors.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also found that the gun could not be fired without pulling the trigger, according to a report that the officials sent to the Santa Fe County Sherriff's Office.

Alec Baldwin has also filed a lawsuit against Gutierrez-Reed, among others, involved with the project for allegedly failing to check the gun carefully.

Gutierrez-Reed has said that she had checked the rounds she had loaded in the prop gun were dummies before handing it to the film's assistant director Dave Halls, who in turn, handed it over to Baldwin and informed him that the gun was unloaded.

At the time of the shooting, an investigation was conducted which had found that there was ‘a degree of neglect’, and the film’s producers were fined over 136,000 dollars by the New Mexico Environment Department for failing to enforce safety protocols, as per reports.

A lawyer for Gutierrez-Reed said she ‘will fight these charges’ and blamed Halls for not informing her that a real gun was supposed to be used at that time when the fatal shooting had occurred.

"Hannah asked Halls if they could use a plastic gun for the rehearsal scene and he said no, wanting a 'real gun'… Hannah asked to be called back into the church if Baldwin was going to use the gun at all and Halls failed to do that,” Todd Bullion, her lawyer, said in a statement.

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