A New Mexico jury on Wednesday found Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the fatal 2021 shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the indie Western. The jury decided the defendant was not guilty of evidence tampering
The panel of seven women and five men returned their verdict in the criminal case after just a couple hours of deliberation today. The trial of the crew member was two weeks and saw closing arguments this morning.
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Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer had Gutierrez-Reed taken into custody almost immediately after the verdict was read out. A sentencing hearing is potentially set for next month. The defense have made it clear they plan to appeal.
The stepdaughter of famed movie gun coach Thell Reed, relatively inexperienced armorer Gutierrez-Reed was charged with involuntary manslaughter and evidence tampering. She faced up to three years in state prison if found guilty on both charges. With the split verdict, the most Gutierrez-Reed could potentially receive now is about 18 months and a fine of several thousand dollars.
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Ever since she was charged back in January 2023, the prosecution has claimed Gutierrez-Reed was responsible for live rounds getting on the Rust set and into the gun that Alec Baldwin was holding that fired during rehearsals on the Bonanza Creek set, striking Hutchins and director Joel Souza. In response, the defense has offered various theories over the past two years about how that fatal bullet got there, including sabotage.
“There’s reasonable doubt she had anything to do ultimately with Halyna Hutchins’ death,” main defense lawyer Jason Bowles said today in his closing argument before the jury, the special prosecutors and Sommer. Reiterating language from his opening statement on February 22, Bowles called his client a “convenient scapegoat,” and added: “The buck stops with production … as in any organization, it starts at the top.”
The prosecution took a different perspective, as expected.
“[Gutierrez-Reed] was negligent, she was careless, she was thoughtless,” Special Prosecutor Kerri Morrissey said today in her closing statement. Proclaiming there is “a mountain of circumstantial evidence” against the defendant, Morrissey added of the defense’s so-called “shotgun approach” strategy: “This is all smoke and mirrors and deflection, they don’t want the truth.”
A visibly distraught Thell Reed was in Santa Fe County courtroom today when the verdict was read out against his stepdaughter. Also in the courtroom, sitting at the back, was Rust ammunition supplier Seth Kenney.
Long at the heart of the mystery of how live rounds got into the gun in Baldwin’s hand, Kenney told the court in his own testimony earlier this week that he believed the 81-year-old Reed wanted to blame him for the accident. “Knowing Thell and having been friends with him for a few years at that point, I know how much he loves his daughter,” Kenney said.
What there seemed to be no debate about in this trial was that to save money, producers on the low-budget indie Western had Gutierrez-Reed working as both the armorer and as assistant to props master Sarah Zachery. The latter struck a plea deal last year and testified for the prosecution last week.
A 2022 report by the Occupational Health & Safety Bureau’s New Mexico office determined that Gutierrez-Reed was not provided “time to conduct her duties to the best of her diligence” and required to “focus on other tasks” like working in the props department. Putting the responsibility for the shooting on Rust producers, OSHA handed out a civil penalty to Rust Productions for $136,793, one of the largest such penalties ever levied by the organization. That penalty was reduced to $100,000 early last year after a protest from the producers.
After the sentencing of Gutierrez-Reed, the next big move in this tragedy is the July 9-scheduled involuntary manslaughter trial of Rust star-producer Baldwin. Recharged with involuntary manslaughter himself in January and having entered a not guilty plea not long afterward, the multi-Emmy-winning actor was brought up almost as much as the defendant herself in Gutierrez-Reed’s trial.
Potentially looking at 18 months behind bars if found guilty, Baldwin is also fighting a series of civil cases related to the Rust shooting in both California and New Mexico courts.
Although the FBI and other gun examiners disagree, Baldwin has been adamant that he did not pull the trigger on the Colt .45 he was holding that fired and killed Hutchins and wounded Souza.
Rust the movie was resurrected last year with more filming in Montana, and Baldwin and Souza back on board. The completed film has been on the market looking for a buyer.
The OSHA report placed blame on the management…
For what purpose is a live round even on a tv set?
The so-called “armorer” neither was given armorer’s authority to stop production for the sake of safety, nor was she even in that role full time but splitting it with assisting the props department. Nor did she even believe she was qualified. Arguably much or even all of the time, they didn’t truly have anyone in the role of armorer, not even a bad armorer – and the management should have known that.
There was only one person who held the gun and pointed it at the victim. Doesn’t matter what anyone else did period. When you’re handed a gun YOU take the responsibility no one else.
If a commercial aircraft crashes due to a non-visible defect caused by a repair error, is it the pilot’s fault?
Sorry, John. Just not the way things work. Baldwin could’ve pointed that prop at every single crew member, one after another, and pulled the trigger three times each and it wouldn’t have done anything but either A. Nothing at all or B. Made a loud to VERY LOUD bang… but for one thing: Hannah Gutierrez-Reed allowed real bullets to be co-mingled with blank rounds on the set. In other words, she failed at the most basic tenet of her job.
Think of all the rounds fired in film and television in the 30 years since Brandon Lee’s accidental death. Now, when you think about all those rounds, think of all the rounds fired in takes that didn’t make the cut. Michael Bay movies alone probably accounts for thousands of rounds. THE HARDER THEY FALL, another western fired hundreds if not thousands (on the same property in NM). The difference is that the Armorer’s on those projects were competent and careful. They followed the prescribed on-set safety protocols regarding the safe handling of weapons on set and no one was hurt.
The issue here was an inexperienced and unprofessional Armorer and a lax A.D. (who should have been charged as well but was inexplicably given a plea deal). That’s it. Baldwin will hopefully be exonerated from any blame since he is not responsible, as an actor, to verify that the gun is safe. He was handed a prop and specifically told that prop was “cold.” And even if he hadn’t been told that, there is no reason he should’ve ever thought – even for a moment – that there might have been an actual bullet in that gun.
Not when you’re an actor. Here’s the statement from SAG.
“The death of Halyna Hutchins is a tragedy, and all the more so because of its preventable nature. It is not a failure of duty or a criminal act on the part of any performer.
“The prosecutor’s contention that an actor has a duty to ensure the functional and mechanical operation of a firearm on a production set is wrong and uninformed. An actor’s job is not to be a firearms or weapons expert. Firearms are provided for their use under the guidance of multiple expert professionals directly responsible for the safe and accurate operation of that firearm. In addition, the employer is always responsible for providing a safe work environment at all times, including hiring and supervising the work of professionals trained in weapons.
typical actor think , they’re not responsible for anything and everyone does everything for them.
Hope Baldwin rots in jail
The entertainment industry is not on trial here so it matters little what SAG or any other entertainment group says. We are talking about homicide and involuntary manslaughter so what really matters is that someone is dead because of the mishandling of a weapon. The first rule in handling firearms is never to point a firearm at something you do not wish to destroy. Clearly, Baldwin violated that rule. The mechanics of the weapon, the ammunition loaded in the firearm and where it came from are separate issues. Mr Baldwin violated the first rule and there is a dead woman as a result. It’s just that simple. The jury gets to decide how that killing is covered by the law but make no mistake about it, she is dead because he mishandled the weapon.
As to the armorer, unless someone can prove that she had control of the weapon up to the point that Mr Baldwin took control of it, I submit that she has no culpability in the death at all. She is being prosecuted as a scapegoat for an anti-gun movie star.
You are correct. Too much BS in the courtroom as usual!
“The entertainment industry is not on trial here”? The entertainment industry is absolutely on trail. If the entertainment industry’s protocols do not work, that’s what should be fixed. Alex Baldwin is an actor who was being given instructions by the safety officials on the set. It should probably be illegal to have real, functional firearms on sets. It is not Alec Baldwin’s fault that the movie industry has been using real guns for a hundred years.