On October 21, 2021, tragedy struck the set of the upcoming Western movie Rust when cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed by a live round discharged from a prop revolver that was held by actor Alec Baldwin, and director Joel Souza was injured by the same round. Cut to this past January, Baldwin was indicted (again) with involuntary manslaughter over Hutchins’ death, and his trial will begin later this year. However, Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was also put in the legal spotlight, and now we’ve learned that she’s been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
As reported by Variety, this verdict was reached after less than three hours of deliberation by a 12-member jury in the Santa Fe-based trial. Conversely, the jury did not convict Gutierrez-Reed on the separate evidence-tampering charge. She was remanded into custody after the verdict was read, and she now faces up to 18 months in prison, with her sentencing being set for sometime in April.
Per THR, following the shooting that killed Halyna Hutchins and injured Joel Souza, five live rounds were found amidst dummy rounds on the Rust set. While it’s unknown how those live rounds ended up on set, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed’s continually claimed that she’s loaded the revolver Alec Baldwin was holding with dummy rounds. Prosecutors argued at the trial that Gutierrez-Reed was “careless” with handling the firearms and ammunition, whereas the defense claimed that she was, as the outlet described, “the scapegoat for larger safety issues on set that she could not control.” Jason Bowles, her attorney, pointed the blame at Baldwin.
More to come…