A movie weapons supervisor is facing up to 18 months in prison for the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin on the set of the Western film “Rust,” with her sentencing scheduled for Monday in a New Mexico state court.
Movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was convicted in March by a jury on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and has been held for more than a month at a county jail on the outskirts of Santa Fe.
Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer for “Rust,” was pointing a gun at Hutchins when the revolver went off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
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Prosecutors blamed Gutierrez-Reed for unwittingly bringing live ammunition onto the set of “Rust” where it was expressly prohibited and for failing to follow basic gun safety protocols. After a two-week trial, the jury deliberated for about three hours in reaching its verdict.
That was never alledged during the trial itself. There was live round practice, but it was done properly at a fireing range.
The prosecution’s theory was that they came from a different set which did use live rounds. Reed brought dummies herself (instead of going through the prop house for everything) due to shortages.
The defenses theory was that their prop house messed up and provided live rounds with their dummies.
The Variety article on the closing arguments is fairly succinct.
The prosecution has argued that the evidence shows Gutierrez Reed inadvertently brought them to set, mingled among dummy rounds. In a police interview, Gutierrez Reed said she brought some dummies that were loose in a bag in her car and were left over from her previous job as armorer on “The Old Way,” a Nicolas Cage film.
“I’m not telling you that Hannah Gutierrez intended to bring live rounds on set,” Morrissey said. “I’m telling you that she was negligent. She was thoughtless. She was careless… For all we know those dummy rounds were floating around the set of ‘The Old Way,’ and Nicolas Cage is lucky to have walked away with his life.”
Throw in the fact that she apparently didn’t even give the rounds a little shake to confirm that they were empty except for the little BB rattling around in there, and “without due caution and circumspection” is a slam dunk. Baldwin’s case is a little more iffy, but certainly a reasonable one to bring to a jury.
Was Baldwin wrong on anything? Was he not just given the gun or were there other things at play?
Based on testimony and evidence presented at the Reed trial:
- He was not paying attention during his gun training.
- He broke gun protocals throughout the filming. Including fireing a (blank loaded) gun after cut was called.
- (The actual event) He pointed a “prop” gun at a real person and pulled the trigger. Even with a cleared gun, this is something that is not supposed to be done. Additionally, this was during a “blocking” session, so the camera was not even rolling. He was not supposed to be using the prop gun at all for this.
Even if the gun was loaded with blanks, this even would likely still have caused an injury (and possibly death, although likely not).
Baldwin will likely argue that Reed was supposed to know all of this and stopped him before the accident happened.
It’s been a while since I really looked into it, but there seem to be some open questions that could get him on the same standard:
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What’s up with his claim that he didn’t even pull the trigger, which seems to have been misleading?
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Could he have pointed the gun in a slightly different direction?
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Was the shot they wanted so artistically necessary that it had to be done with practical effects?
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Does an actor still maintain some residual “normal human” responsibility before pulling a trigger on a real gun pointed at an innocent person, and if so how much?
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Did he, in his role as a producer on a fairly slapdash production, bear any culpability for the armorer’s actions or for hiring her in the first place? The NM statute is pretty broad, though I think he’ll more likely face civil than criminal liability here.
All in all, my gut impression is he has a very good chance at being acquitted, but it was also a fair case to bring:
Involuntary manslaughter consists of manslaughter committed in the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to felony, or in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death in an unlawful manner or without due caution and circumspection.
EDIT: @homura1650@lemm.ee is probably more up on what’s going on than I am.
Baldwin is absolutely worth going after. Guy is a producer in the set who flagrantly broke protocol any greenhorn actor would have drilled into their heads first day on set. He’s liable as an employer to provide a safe work environment and the people who broke the rules were all people hired to positions meant to enforce safety on the set.
If a regular someone broke the rules he broke on any set I have worked they would have had their ass fucking handed to them. Rule one on a set, DON’T TOUCH anything that is not directly related to your department. If anyone saw a 1st AD with a weapon in hand for any reason on a set his job would be on the line… Yet this producer took it from him without asking questions. Anyone who saw that happen would immediately know the set safety is fucked… But who are you going to report to? Production? Not when the producer is the one breaking the rule . The Union? Nope- not a union show? Studio Hotline? Ha, not unless they are able to pull funding. OSHA? Good luck explaining the complex best practice of film work to some normie showing up on set.
Union and studio produced film has layers of folks who check producer power and mitigate the liability of individual producers on a set… But if there is no one who can stop you congrats! You are liable for what happens on your show.
In reality these people had two options. Work on an unsafe set where Production was obviously crooked and take the risk - or lose money and maybe risk their personal relationships to follow their instincts and leave. Baldwin put these people’s lives and careers at risk.
Bullshit. You test and inspect everything that goes into a actor’s hands doesn’t matter what it is particularly when it comes to fx and stunts. Throwing shade on a prop house is a skeezeball move. Our industry has best practice checks that you do at multiple points - upon purchase before the day, when you load up and immediately before you hand over the weapon. Even if they somehow bought their live rounds from a prop house you would have to ignore at least three levels of check you should be doing to get that far, nevermind the weapon was left on a cart and handed over by someone unauthorized.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a breakaway ceramic piece or a round - you buy extra then what you need for camera and you check…
