Alec Baldwin “Didn’t Do A Gun Safety Check,” Prosecutor Tells ‘Rust’ Jury In Barbed Start To Actor’s Involuntary Manslaughter Trial; Star “Committed No Crime,” Defense Says

deadline.com:

Alec Baldwin “violated …set safety rules,” declared the prosecution this morning in the Rust star’s involuntary manslaughter trial for the 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. “After the shooting the defendant began to claim he did not pull the trigger,” said special prosecutor Erlinda Johnson in opening statements in Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer’s Sante Fe County courtroom. “The evidence will show ladies and gentlemen, that’s not possible,” Johnson added poignantly to the jury, as Baldwin himself sat a few feet away.

Setting the tone and temperament for the trial, the prosecution and the defense went at each other’s cases with harsh accusations of going to “the edge of truth and beyond” and “gaps in the evidence.” “That gun the defendant had asked to be assigned, worked perfectly fine, as it was designed,” special prosecutor Johnson said near the end of her relatively brief but pointed remarks Wednesday. “One of the main problems that afternoon of October 21 was that the defendant didn’t do a gun safety check with that inexperienced armor,” Johnson went on to say in reference to the now-incarcerated Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. “He pointed the gun at another human being, cocked the hammer and pulled that trigger with reckless disregard for Ms.

Hutchins’ safety,” Johnson steely stated of Baldwin. Hutchins was killed and Rust director Joel Souza was injured on October 21, 2021 after the Colt .45 Baldwin was pointing at the cinematographer shot off a live round during a rehearsal at the Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe.

Recharged with involuntary manslaughter in January, exactly a year after he was charged the first time, Baldwin entered a not guilty plea in the weeks afterwards.