Rust armourer jailed for fatal shooting
You turned safe weapon into a lethal weapon, judge tells Hannah Gutierrez
Hannah Gutierrez, the chief weapons handler for the Western film Rust, was sentenced to 18 months in prison over the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was shot when actor Alec Baldwin was handling a gun during production in 2021.
In March, Gutierrez, 27, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for mistakenly loading a live round into a revolver Baldwin was using on a Santa Fe, New Mexico, film set.
“You alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon,” Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer told Gutierrez as she handed down the sentence.
In video calls and the courtroom during the hearing, Hutchins’ friends from the film industry paid tribute to her creativity and kindness. They also lambasted Gutierrez’s breaches in firearms safety protocol.
“I struggle to deal with this repeatedly being called an accident, because it was not an accident, it was negligence,” said Jen White, a film industry colleague.
Baldwin’s trial is set for July 10 after a grand jury indicted him on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in January.
Gutierrez’s lawyer Jason Bowles had requested she be given probation, but prosecutors argued for a full 18 months due to lack of contrition. “I beg you please don’t give me more time,” Gutierrez told the court, adding that her “heart ached” for Hutchins’ family “The jury has found me at fault for this tragedy but that doesn’t make me a monster that makes me human”.
In a video call from Kyiv the Ukraine-born cinematographer’s mother mourned her daughter’s death and her grandson Andros being left without a mother.
“It’s the hardest thing to lose a child,” said Olga Solovey, whose comments were translated into English in subtitles.
Prosecutor Kari Morrissey pointed to phone calls by Gutierrez from jail in which she said the jurors were “idiots”, the judge had been “paid off”, and she continued to blame Baldwin and others for the shooting.
Gutierrez had already spent a month in Santa Fe county jail following her conviction.
On March 6, a Santa Fe jury took less than two hours to find her guilty. One juror afterwards said Gutierrez had not done her job to ensure safety on set.
Hutchins’ death initially prompted US film and television productions to stop using real firearms and blank ammunition. Many are using them again because of the realistic effects they produce, armourers say.
Hutchins was fatally shot when Baldwin pointed his gun at the cinematographer and cocked the weapon as she set up a scene.
During Gutierrez’s three-week trial, prosecutors accused her of unknowingly bringing live Colt .45 rounds onto the set of the lowbudget movie, something that has been strictly forbidden for nearly a century under Screen Actors Guild safety guidelines.
Bowles said Gutierrez was the scapegoat for a chaotic production where she was not given time to check weapons. He blamed Hutchins’ death on reckless use of firearms by Baldwin and his efforts to rush and control the filming. Baldwin was also a producer and writer on the movie.
Lawyer Gloria Allred, representing Hutchins’ parents and sister in a lawsuit against Baldwin, said she supported his criminal prosecution.
“Mr Baldwin has done everything he could to try to dismiss the case but at this point it appears that trial is going forward,” Allred told reporters outside the courthouse.
The jury has found me at fault for this tragedy but that doesn’t make me a monster HANNAH GUTIERREZ