Alec Baldwin has broken his silence following the shock dismissal of his Rust shooting case.
The actor was on trial over the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was fatally shot while on set in October 2021.
However, the charges were sensationally thrown out on Friday after a New Mexico judge ruled there had been ‘errors in handling’ over some of the evidence.
Alec Baldwin wept in the Santa Fe courtroom when the news was announced and has since taken to Instagram to speak out.
‘There are too many people who have supported me to thank just now,’ he wrote on Saturday.
‘To all of you, you will never know how much I appreciate your kindness toward my family.’
The extraordinary decision to quash his trial came after a day-long hearing without the jury present, over bullets that should have been in evidence.
Baldwin’s lawyers claimed they were ‘concealed’ from them and ‘buried’ in another case file.
The issue had upended the trial for Alec Baldwin who pleaded not guilty to two counts of involuntary manslaughter, as he was accused of negligence for accidentally firing a live round on the set.
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, 26, the armorer on the set of Rust, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter earlier this year.
She was later jailed for 18 months, a sentence Baldwin had faced if found guilty.
Baldwin’s case was dismissed with prejudice, meaning prosecutors cannot bring the same charges against him in the case and the trial is permanently dismissed.
Although he has civil court cases pending, Baldwin appeared relieved as he celebrated having the criminal raps dropped over the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in October 2021.
The 66-year-old stepped out onto the streets of Santa Fe, New Mexico hours after the decision was read and received cheers from fans.
However, Hutchins’ widow and the father of her son Matthew Hutchins has stated he hopes that Baldwin will still be held accountable for his actions.
The extraordinary turn of events followed a chaotic hearing on Friday.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer asked for the bullets to be brought into court where – in unusual scenes – she put on gloves and inspected them herself.
Baldwin’s lawyer Luke Nikas told the court that the bullets were brought to police in Santa Fe in March this year by former police officer Troy Teske, who claimed they were the same kind that were used to shoot Hutchins.
Baldwin’s attorney Nikas claimed that prosecutors ‘buried’ the bullets as evidence by giving it a different case number to the main Rust investigation.
As a result, when Baldwin’s lawyers went to the police to view all the Rust ammunition in April, they were not shown it, a breach of evidentiary rules.