‘Rust’ Armorer Found Guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter in On-Set Shooting

Movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was found guilty Wednesday of causing the involuntary manslaughter of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins two years ago on the set of Alec Baldwin‘s Western flick Rust. The rookie armorer faces up to 18 months in prison for her role in the death of Hutchins, who was a rising star in her industry.

Jurors took a little more than two hours to reach their verdict after the 10-day trial in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Gutierrez-Reed was found not guilty of tampering with evidence, meaning jurors did not believe prosecutors proved she handed off a bag of cocaine over to a fellow crew member just hours after her first interview with police on Oct. 21, 2021, the day of the fatal shooting.

In closing arguments Wednesday, prosecutors argued that Gutierrez-Reed negligently brought live ammunition onto the set and failed to identify that it was mixed in with the inert, dummy rounds that she was loading into prop weapons. Six live bullets were eventually found floating around the production at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, including the live round that killed Hutchins. Two others were found loose on top of a prop cart while one was found in Baldwin’s holster belt and another was found in actor Jensen Ackles’ gun belt.

“This was a game of Russian roulette every time an actor had a gun with dummies,” special prosecutor Kari Morrissey said.

Morrissey showed jurors a series of photos showing actors and stunt people casually pointing guns at people during breaks in filming. She faulted Gutierrez-Reed for not intervening: “She’s there. We hear her. We see her. She does nothing.” Morrissey said Gutierrez-Reed’s “entire job is to be responsible,” and she was “not paying attention, not taking her job seriously.”

“This case is about constant, never-ending safety failures that resulted in the death of a human being and nearly killed another,” Morrissey said. (The film’s director Joel Souza was wounded in the shoulder by the same bullet that killed Hutchins.)

In a police interview played for jurors during the trial, Gutierrez-Reed admitted she arrived on set with loose ammunition left over from her job on the Nicolas Cage movie The Old Way.

“I’m not telling you that Hannah Gutierrez intended to bring live rounds on set,” Morrissey argued. “I’m telling you that she was negligent. She was careless. She was thoughtless.” Morrissey said it was possible the same live rounds “were floating around the set of The Old Way, and Nicolas Cage is lucky to have walked away with his life.”

After the verdict, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer ordered Gutierrez-Reed remanded into custody. “This is a death. It’s criminal negligence, but it’s still a death,” the judge said before a deputy led Gutierrez-Reed out of the courtroom without handcuffing her.

When Gutierrez-Reed’s trial began on Feb. 22, dueling portrayals of her took center stage during opening statements in the young armorer’s televised trial. Prosecutors accused Gutierrez-Reed of being “unprofessional and sloppy,” claiming that jurors would hear testimony that she “routinely left guns and ammunition lying around the set, unattended, and that her gun safe and ammo cart were constantly disorganized.”

Gutierrez-Reed’s defense lawyer, Jason Bowles, portrayed her as a powerless figure on set, someone who was rushed repeatedly and forced to split her time between her job as armorer and another job as a props assistant. He called her a “scapegoat” for producers concerned more about “profit” than people’s lives. He said investigators “rushed to judgement” in their probe, failing to seriously look at prop supplier Seth Kenney as the possible source of the live ammunition.

Bowles argued the fatal shooting was not “foreseeable” because Gutierrez-Reed had no idea live ammunition was on the set. “It cannot be willful if Hannah does not know there’s live rounds, and nobody did,” he said. “Nobody in their wildest dreams thought there was a live round.” Bowles also has argued that Baldwin held more power than Gutierrez-Reed as the film’s superstar producer and was the one who ultimately discharged the gun.

Baldwin has pleaded not guilty to his own involuntary manslaughter charge and is set to face trial in July.