Alec Baldwin is sued by family of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins for wrongful death

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Alec Baldwin posted a video to Instagram Tuesday afternoon of a sign that read, ‘Everything’s going to be alright’ just hours after the actor was sued by the family of slain Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins for wrongful death as her lawyers recreated the moment he accidentally shot and killed her with prop gun on a New Mexico set last October.     

Baldwin was holding a Colt revolver during a rehearsal on set at the Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe when he fired a live round on October 21, 2021, killing Hutchins. 

He has maintained that it was Hutchins herself who asked him to point the gun just off camera and toward her armpit before it went off. Director Joel Souza also was wounded in the shooting. 

The civil lawsuit, filed in New Mexico on Tuesday, is seeking unspecified but ‘substantial’ damages, including punitive damages. 

Attorney Brian Panish, representing Hutchins’ husband, Matthew Hutchins, and their young son, Andros, held a press conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday to announce the lawsuit against Baldwin and ‘others who are responsible for the safety on set, and whose reckless behavior and cost-cutting led to the senseless, tragic death of Halyna Hutchins,’ he said.

According to Panish, his firm has conducted an independent investigation that he said uncovered ‘numerous violations of industry standards’ by Baldwin and the other defendants named in the complaint, among them Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, assistant director David Halls and several production companies attached to the project. 

‘There are many people culpable, but Mr. Baldwin was the person holding the weapon … that but for him shooting, she would not have died,’ Panish said.  

At least three other lawsuits have been filed over the shooting, but this is the first directly tied to one of the two people shot.  

A 10-minute video created by the attorneys showed a 3D animated recreation of the shooting during a rehearsal in a church. 

It shows a computer-generated avatar representing Baldwin accepting the Colt gun from Halls, pointing it in Hutchins’ direction, and firing.

The animation shows that the bullet in the chamber was live and not a ‘dummy’ with a hole drilled into it. The round strikes Hutchins, who clutches her chest and collapses in the video.   

The lawsuit filed was on behalf of Halyna Hutchins’ widow and her son in New Mexico on TuesdayIt claims that the defendants, including Alec Baldwin, armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed and assistant director David Halls cut corners on safety procedures Baldwin and the defendantsare accused of being aware that there were firearms safety issues on the set of Rust and did not take action to correct the situation and ensure that basic gun safety rules were followed Baldwin is accused of refusing training for the kind of gun draw he acted out when he shot Hutchins It also claimed that producers rushed shooting on the film to stay on schedule and ignored numerous complaints and safety violations These included failure to use a prop gun rather than a live weapon, lack of individuals qualified to handle weapons on set at the time of the shooting and lack of protectic equipment for crewA text message was produced raising the concern that there had been two accidental discharges on set and one explosive device was accidentally set offThere had been no safety meetings, as required, on the day Hutchins was shot dead 

The lawsuit filed on Tuesday states: ‘Halyna Hutchins deserved to live, and the Defendants had the power to prevent her death if they had only held sacrosanct their duty to protect the safety of every individual on a set where firearms were present instead of cutting corners on safety procedures where human lives were at stake, rushing to stay on schedule and ignoring numerous complaints of safety violations.’ 

The attorneys said in the video presented on Tuesday that Baldwin had ‘refused’ training for the kind of gun draw he was doing when he shot Hutchins. The lawsuit also claims that Baldwin never checked the gun himself for ammunition before using it.

They also presented a list of ‘at least 15 industry standards’ Panish said the film producers had ignored on set.

These included failure to use a prop gun rather than a live weapon, a lack of individuals qualified to handle weapons on set at the time of the shooting, and lack of protective equipment for crew. 

Panish also produced a copy of a text message where a local camera operator made safety complaints to producers that there had been three unsafe weapons discarges and that the set was ‘super unsafe’.

The unit production manager responded ‘with callous sarcasm’, according to the lawsuit. He said in response that it was ‘awesome’ and ‘sounds good’.  

As of Tuesday afternoon, Baldwin, 62, has not commented on this latest lawsuit. He and wife Hilaria, 37, were seen in the West Village in Manhattan this morning, returning from a shopping trip to a Walgreens pharmacy.

Aaron Dyer, an attorney for Baldwin and other Rust producers, said, ‘Any claim that Alec was reckless is entirely false.’ 

This protocol has worked on thousands of films, with millions of discharges, and there has never before been an incident on a set where an actual bullet harmed anyone,’ Dyer said. ‘Actors should be able to rely on armorers and prop department professionals, as well as assistant directors, rather than deciding on their own when a gun is safe to use.’ 

Baldwin has previously said that while on the set, at Hutchins’ direction, he pulled the hammer back and that it fired when he let go. He has said he didn’t know the gun contained a live round.

According to witnesses on-set, Baldwin was stunned after firing the fatal round and asked: ‘Why was I handed a hot gun?’ 

According to Panish, crew members had voiced complaints to producers about ‘super unsafe’ practices on the set of Rust – which had a budget of just over $7 million – including three accidental discharges preceding Hutchins’ shooting. 

Rust camera assistant Lane Luper, who made the ‘super unsafe’ comment and quit on the eve of the shooting, told Good Morning America that there were only two safety meetings on set and said production did not take gun safety seriously.

‘I think with Rust, it was the perfect storm of the armorer, the assistant director, the culture that was on set, the rushing. It was everything,’ he said. 

In the days after Hutchins’ death, her widow Matthew Hutchins was spotted being comforted by Baldwin in Santa Fe. ‘I have spoken with Alec Baldwin and he is being very supportive,’ Matthew Hutchins said at the time.

Law enforcement officials in New Mexico have described ‘some complacency’ in how weapons were handled on the set of Rust. They have yet to file any charges and have been working to determine where the live rounds found on set might have come from. 

Last month, nearly three months after the shooting, Baldwin turned over his cellphone to authorities in his home state of New York. They gathered information from the phone and provided it to Santa Fe County investigators, who had obtained a warrant for it. 

Baldwin said he does not believe he will be criminally charged in the shooting.

The film’s script supervisor Mamie Mitchell and its lead camera operator, both of whom were standing a few feet away when Hutchins was shot, each filed a lawsuit over the trauma they went through.

Last month, lawyers for Baldwin appealed to have the second lawsuit thrown out. Representatives have said nothing in the allegations brought by Mitchell who suggested that anyone knew that the prop contained live ammunition leading up to the ‘unprecedented’ incident.

Mitchell’s complaint includes claims of assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, allegedly Baldwin ‘chose to play Russian Roulette with a loaded gun without checking it.’  

In November, the low-budget movie’s chief lighting technician Serge Svetnoy sued Baldwin for negligence. 

And the film’s armorer, Gutierrez Reed, who was named as a defendant in those lawsuits and blamed by some for the shooting, filed her own suit saying an ammunition supplier created dangerous conditions by including live ammunition in a box that was supposed to include only dummy rounds.

In an interview with ABC News in December, Baldwin said he felt incredible sadness over the the shooting, but not guilt.

‘Someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but it’s not me,’ Baldwin said.

He said Hutchins had asked him to point the gun just off camera and toward her armpit before it went off.

‘I didn’t pull the trigger,’ Baldwin said. ‘I would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger at them. Never.’

He called Hutchins ‘somebody who was loved by everybody and admired by everybody who worked with her.’

Hutchins, 42, grew up on a remote Soviet military base and worked on documentary films in Eastern Europe before studying film in Los Angeles and embarking on a promising movie-making career.

On her Instagram page, Hutchins identified herself as a ‘restless dreamer’ and ‘adrenaline junkie.’

In a 2019 interview with American Cinematographer, which named her one of the year’s rising stars, she described herself as an ‘army brat’ drawn to movies because ‘there wasn’t that much to do outside.’ She would document herself parachuting and exploring caves, among other adventures, and through her work with British filmmakers, became ‘fascinated with storytelling based on real characters.’