Armourer guilty in movie-set shooting
A jury convicted a movie weapons supervisor of involuntary manslaughter Wednesday in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin during a rehearsal on the set of the Western movie “Rust.”
The verdict against armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed assigned new blame in the October 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins after an assistant director last year pleaded no contest to negligent handling of a firearm.
Gutierrez-Reed, 26, had also faced a charge of tampering with evidence, stemming from accusations that she handed a small bag of narcotics to a crew member after the shooting to avoid detection. She was found not guilty on that count.
Lead attorney Jason Bowles said afterward that Gutierrez-Reed will appeal the conviction, which carries a penalty of up to 18 months in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Baldwin, the lead actor and a coproducer on “Rust,” was indicted by a grand jury in January on a charge of involuntary manslaughter. He was pointing a gun at Hutchins on a movie set outside Santa Fe, N.M., when the gun went off, killing the cinematographer and wounding director Joel Souza.
This trial was a preamble to Baldwin’s trial scheduled in July. He has pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors said at trial that Gutierrez-Reed unknowingly brought live ammunition onto the movie set, and it remained there for at least 12 days before the fatal shooting, giving the armourer plenty of time to remove it.
In closing arguments, prosecutor Kari Morrissey described “constant, never-ending safety failures” on the set of “Rust” and GutierrezReed’s “astonishing lack of diligence” with gun safety.
“We end exactly where we began — in the pursuit of justice for Halyna Hutchins,” Morrissey said. “Hannah Gutierrez failed to maintain firearms safety, making a fatal accident wilful and foreseeable.”
Defense attorneys told jurors that the problems on the set extended far beyond Gutierrez-Reed’s control, including the mishandling of weapons by Baldwin, citing sanctions and findings by state workplace safety investigators.