Study Proves Baldwin Pulled Trigger, Charges Could Be Refiled

A new forensic investigation proves that actor/activist Alec Baldwin must have pulled the trigger on the gun that killed 42-year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on a movie set, reopening the possibility that he could face manslaughter charges.

Back in October 2021, during a camera rehearsal on the western Rust, the film’s star Baldwin accidentally shot and killed Hutchins. The old Colt .45 he was holding was supposed to be loaded with dummy rounds that would not fire, but somehow a live round found its way into the firearm. Hutchins was killed and the director injured.

After a lengthy investigation, New Mexico prosecutors filed manslaughter charges against Baldwin and the film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. In April, the charges against Baldwin were dropped. Prosecutors later warned the charges could be refiled:

Over the last few days and in preparation for the May 3, 2023, preliminary hearing, new facts were revealed that demand further investigation and forensic analysis in the case against Alexander “Alec” Rae Baldwin, III. Consequently, we cannot proceed under the current time constraints and on the facts and evidence turned over by law enforcement in its existing form. We therefore will be dismissing the involuntary manslaughter charges against Mr. Baldwin to conduct further investigation. This decision does not absolve Mr. Baldwin of criminal culpability and charges may be refiled. Our follow-up investigation will remain active and on-going.

Apparently, that “further investigation and forensic analysis” involved Baldwin’s claim the gun went off without him pulling the trigger.

In a December 2021 interview with ABC News, he told George Stephanopoulos,

[Hutchins is] guiding me through how she wants me to hold the gun for this angle. I’m holding the gun where she told me to hold it, which ended up being aimed right below her armpit. So, I take the gun, and I start to cock the gun. I’m not going to pull the trigger. And I cock the gun; I go, “Can you see that? Can you see that? Can you see that?” And then I let go of the gun’s hammer, and the gun goes off.

Guns do not go off without someone pulling the trigger, and almost two years later a forensic investigation of the firearm concluded the same:

The experts reconstructed the gun, which had been broken during earlier testing by the FBI, and concluded that it could only have been fired by a pull of the trigger.

“This fatal incident was the consequence of the hammer being manually retracted to its fully rearward and cocked position followed, at some point, by the pull or rearward depression of the trigger,” the report concluded. “Although Alec Baldwin repeatedly denies pulling the trigger, given the tests, findings and observations reported here, the trigger had to be pulled or depressed sufficiently to release the fully cocked or retracted hammer of the evidence revolver.”

…

“If it is determined that the gun did not malfunction, charges against Mr. Baldwin will proceed,” [prosecutors] wrote in a filing in June.