Alec Baldwin’s criminal case was about ammunition at its shocking beginning and its sudden end

BY  MORGAN LEE AND ANDREW DALTON

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The criminal case against Alec Baldwin was about the handling of bullets from the beginning. And the handling of bullets brought it to an end.

When cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was shot and killed nearly three years ago on the New Mexico set of the film “Rust,” one question obsessed authorities yet was never definitively answered: How was it possible that live, lethal rounds had gotten into the mix with the blanks that traditionally make movie gunfire and the inert dummy rounds that play the role of bullets on screen, then into the revolver that Baldwin, in character, was pointing at Hutchins?

Evidence that Baldwin’s attorneys unearthed as part of a possible explanation — ammunition turned over by a man who walked into the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office in March — brought the actor’s involuntary manslaughter trial to a