Firearms report: Trigger pull required to fire gun in 'Rust' shooting death

Aug. 15—Prosecutors have received a new firearms report that appears to contradict a key part of actor Alec Baldwin's account of a fatal shooting on the "Rust" movie set in 2021.

Baldwin has maintained that he did not pull the trigger of the prop Colt .45 revolver he was holding on Oct. 21, 2021, during a rehearsal on the "Rust" movie set, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

Arizona firearms expert Lucien C. Haag, author of the new report, concluded that a trigger pull would have been required to fire the Italian-made Pietta pistol, a replica of the 1873 Colt .45 pistol that killed Hutchins.

"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," Haag wrote in the report, dated Aug. 2.

Messages left on Tuesday for Baldwin's attorney, Alex Spiro, were not immediately returned.

Haag also wrote in the report that "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."

Prosecutors dismissed an involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin in April.

Without providing details, special prosecutors Kari Morrisey and Jason Lewis announced their decision to dismiss the felony charge after "new facts were revealed that demand further investigation and forensic analysis."

The prosecutors also wrote in a June 9 motion that Baldwin could still face criminal charges based on the results of the firearms test.

"If it is determined that the gun did not malfunction, charges against Mr. Baldwin will proceed," Morrisey and Lewis wrote in the motion filed in the case of Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the weapons supervisor on the film, who remains charged with involuntary manslaughter in the case.

The motion said the gun had been sent to the state's independent expert for further testing. It also said prosecutors would make a decision by mid-August whether to refile charges against Baldwin.

The Haag report was included as an exhibit in a motion filed Tuesday by Albuquerque attorneys Jason Bowles and Todd Bullion, who represent Gutierrez-Reed.

"The Haag report does not indicate any modification to the gun," Bowles and Bullion wrote in the motion, which seeks certain jury instructions. "The report further expresses that when parts broken by the FBI in testing were replaced, the gun fired as designed. The FBI had previously stated in its report that the gun functioned as designed before parts were broken during destructive testing."

An FBI report issued last year found that the gun's trigger needed to have been pulled for the gun to fire. The FBI also acknowledged that they had damaged the gun during testing in Quantico, Virginia.