Alec Baldwin is not out of the woods after shooting a crewmember during filming.
Local authorities could still pursue criminal charges.
And Baldwin’s legal troubles got much worse after his horrifying shooting ordeal.
Alec Baldwin is attempting to move on after the horrific shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during the filming of the western Rust.
Baldwin finally agreed to turn over his phone to local law enforcement after his lawyer stonewalled investigators for weeks.
Now Baldwin is facing a lawsuit from Hutchins’s husband Matthew.
From The Daily Wire:
“A new report says the family of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins is suing actor Alec Baldwin and Rust movie producers. The cinematographer was shot and killed on the set of the movie during filming when a firearm Baldwin was holding discharged a bullet. Lawyers for the family announced the lawsuit during a Los Angeles based news conference Tuesday. The suit was filed in the name of Hutchins’ husband, Matthew Hutchins, and their son, Andros.”
The lawsuit states that the “reckless conduct and cost-cutting measures” undertaken by Baldwin and the film’s producers “led to the death of Halyna Hutchins,” Hutchins’s attorney Brian Pannish said during the press conference.
This is at least the third lawsuit against Baldwin related to the film as other crewmembers file suits.
Armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the person in charge of managing firearms on film sets, sued the production for cutting corners, forcing her to wear multiple hats, and ignoring her safety protocols.
Gutierrez-Reed is relatively inexperienced as an armorer, but her father Thell Reed was a well-known armorer in the film business.
Baldwin has tried to move on from the incident, but the story continues to haunt him.
He recently took a role in a low-budget film in London, but questions still abound about the tragic events on Rust.
Baldwin has carefully avoided accepting responsibility for what happened.
During an interview with ABC News lead anchor George Stephanopoulos, Baldwin said he didn’t even pull the trigger.
He contends that the gun spontaneously went off when he cocked the hammer.
However, firearms experts say his explanation does not pass muster.
Baldwin also didn’t do himself any favors when he retweeted a New York Times article that absolved him of guilt.
Baldwin eventually shut down his Twitter account.
Other celebrities have come out and obliquely said that Baldwin did not take the necessary steps to ensure such an accident wouldn’t happen.
Nicolas Cage, who has starred in many action films, said:
“I don’t want to cast blame anywhere, but I do think, and I’m not talking about anybody, but people don’t like the word movie star. We want to be humble actors. But a movie star is a bit of a different kind of presentation because you need to know how to ride a horse…You need to know how to fight. You’re going to do fight scenes. You need to know how to ride a motorcycle. You need to know how to use a stick shift and drive sports cars, and you do need to know how to use a gun. You do. You need to take the time to know what the procedure is. Those are part of the job profiles.”
Baldwin’s future in the business will remain murky until all of the messy legal battles play out.