Will Alec Baldwin be charged with manslaughter again? That’s a possibility, based on a report released this week that concludes the gun could only have fired if the trigger was pulled.
“This fatal incident was the result of manually retracting the hammer to its fully rearward and cocked position, followed, at some point, by pulling or depressing the trigger rearward,” is -he writes in the report quoted in Variety magazine.
On October 21, 2021, the filming of the western film Rust took a turn for the worse when cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, 42, was shot dead and director Joel Souza injured. Alec Baldwin had pointed a gun that was supposed to contain blanks, which was probably not the case. The actor denied pulling the trigger.
Alec Baldwin was initially charged with manslaughter, but charges against him were dropped in April because the defense raised “new facts”. According to these facts, the gun would have been modified before it was delivered to the film crew, which would have increased the chances of a misfire. The new prosecutors on the case then indicated that these elements required “further investigation and forensic analysis”.
It is this analysis, published Tuesday in a public file, which concludes that the trigger “must have been sufficiently depressed” on the day of the tragedy. As the weapon was broken during tests carried out by the FBI, the experts reconstructed the weapon to conduct their analysis. Of note, prosecutors previously said Alec Baldwin would be charged again if the gun was found to function properly. It is not yet known if this will be the case.
The film’s gunsmith, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, will stand trial in December. She is charged with manslaughter and tampering with evidence in the case.
