Alec Baldwin buys the best justice.

Alec Baldwin Gets Hollywood Justice While Crew Takes the Fall

When Alec Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter for allegedly shooting and killing his cinematographer, the Santa Fe district attorney declared: “No one is above the law and justice will be served.” As it turned out, the rich movie star, who knowingly broke every gun safety rule, is above the law. Prosecutors have dropped the criminal charges against Baldwin. His working-class employees are taking the fall for him, proving there are two systems of justice.

Rules for Thee

New Mexico prosecutors filed to dismiss the charges against Baldwin in late April and said “new facts were revealed that demand further investigation and forensic analysis” before the planned May 3 preliminary hearing. They left open the possibility of refiling charges against Baldwin for the death of Halyna Hutchins, but it is unlikely.

Baldwin, 65, is now back reshooting “Rust” on a new Montana set. Baldwin is both the star and a producer of the movie. The Western stopped filming on Oct. 21, 2021, after Hutchins, 42, was shot in the chest. The bullet went through her and lodged in director Joel Souza’s shoulder.

Two of Baldwin’s crew members, who are not on the new movie set, didn’t get off scot-free.

• The movie’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, remains charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter.
• Assistant Director Dave Halls pled no contest to a charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon in March and got six months’ probation.

“It’s difficult to reconcile how Baldwin’s charges would be dismissed and the charges remain against Hannah,” Gutierrez-Reed’s attorney, Jason Bowles of New Mexico, told me. “Hannah wasn’t in the church when the gun was fired. She wasn’t called back in to complete another safety check with Baldwin. That’s the fault of production, not Hannah.”

Smoking Trigger

When the charges were dropped, Baldwin’s lawyers said in a statement that they were “pleased with the decision” and “encourage a proper investigation into the facts and circumstances of this tragic accident.”

Baldwin’s lawyers’ reference to a “proper investigation” is about discovering that the gun’s trigger was allegedly changed before the movie, according to unnamed sources in several media outlets. 

“The trigger thing is just a smokescreen,” Attorney Andrew F. Branca of the Law of Self Defense told me. “The trigger is irrelevant to Baldwin’s reckless conduct — that conduct is reckless by simply pointing the loaded weapon at Hutchins without having insured it was unloaded, as that alone creates a foreseeable and unjustified risk of death.”

The Scapegoat

After the charges were dropped against Baldwin, the preliminary hearing for Gutierrez-Reed was postponed until August. The charging documents say she should have pushed back harder when Baldwin refused training and did not have her stay with the firearm on set.

“Hannah followed safety rules on set. No one has identified any rule that she allegedly broke,” said her lawyer Bowles. “She did her job to the best of her ability, and requested more training days and specific cross-draw training for Baldwin, which was either denied or ignored.”

In the end, a rich, A-list actor got off all charges and is back to being a movie star. Baldwin scapegoated a young woman without money or power for his arrogant refusal to follow gun safety rules. The movie star got Hollywood justice and left his crew behind to absorb the recoil.

Emily Miller is an award-winning investigative journalist in Washington, D.C. She manages the Substack newsletter “Emily Post News” and is the author of the gun control policy book, Emily Gets Her Gun (Regnery). Follow her on Twitter @EmilyMiller.