(CNN) — Actor and producer Alec Baldwin has been charged in connection with the 2021 fatal shooting on the set of “Rust,” the Santa Fe District Attorney’s office told CNN Tuesday.
The prosecutor’s office said the charges against Baldwin and on-set gunsmith Hannah Gutierrez-Reid include two counts of murder. Lawyers for both defendants earlier insisted that their respective clients were innocent.
This handout image courtesy of the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office and part of the investigation files, released on April 25, 2022, shows the scene of the incident at Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office / AFP via Getty Images
District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altweiss told CNN earlier this month that she would charge Baldwin and the film’s gunsmith with murder, accusing them of failing to follow safety procedures that could have prevented the accident. He died.
Hutchins was killed by ammunition fired from a prop gun held by Baldwin, who claims he did not pull the trigger on the gun.
Director Joel Souza was also shot.
Baldwin has said that he did not know that the gun he fired during rehearsals contained a live bullet. In a statement to CNN on January 19, his attorney called prosecutors’ decision “a terrible judicial error”.
“This decision misrepresents the tragic death of Halina Hutchins and represents a horrific miscarriage of justice. Mr. Baldwin had no reason to believe that the gun was a weapon,” Baldwin’s attorney, Luke Nickas, said in his statement. There was a live shot in or somewhere on the set of the film.
“He trusted the professionals he worked with, who assured him that the weapon did not contain live bullets. We will fight these allegations and we will win.”
An attorney for Gutierrez Reed said he believed jurors would find his client not guilty.
“We expected the allegations, but they are absolutely wrong about Hannah; We expect that a jury will find him not guilty and establish that he did not commit murder,” attorney Jason Bowles said in a statement to CNN earlier this month when the indictment was first released. “He Shocked by the tragedy, but has committed no crime.”
