A jury will soon weigh whether a movie weapons supervisor should be held to blame in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of a Western movie as attorneys deliver closing arguments in the trial of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed
Jury hears closing arguments in trial of armorer over fatal shooting by Alec BaldwinBy MORGAN LEEAssociated PressThe Associated PressSANTA FE, N.M.
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A jury began deliberations on whether a movie weapons supervisor should be held to blame in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin during a rehearsal on the set of a Western movie, after attorneys delivered closing arguments Wednesday in the trial of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed.
Gutierrez-Reed, a 24-year-old on her second feature film as armorer at the time of the 2021 shooting, has pleaded not guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and evidence tampering at the trial held in downtown Santa Fe.
The proceedings are a preamble to a scheduled trial of Baldwin in July on a single charge of involuntary manslaughter. The actor, who has pleaded not guilty, was pointing a revolver at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins when the gun went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza.
Prosecutors say Gutierrez-Reed unknowingly brought live ammunition onto the set of “Rust” at a ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe, arguing that rounds lingered for at least 12 days until the fatal shooting.
In closing arguments, prosecutor Kari Morrissey described “constant, never-ending safety failures” on the set of “Rust” and Gutierrez-Reed’s “astonishing lack of diligence” with gun safety.
“We end exactly where we began — in the pursuit of justice for Halyna Hutchins,” Morrissey told the jury. “Hannah Gutierrez failed to maintain firearms safety, making a fatal accident willful and foreseeable.”
Prosecutors contend the armorer repeatedly skipped or skimped on standard gun-safety protocols that might have detected the live rounds.
“This was a game of Russian roulette every time an actor had a gun with dummies,” Morrissey said.
Defense attorneys said the problems on the set extended far beyond Gutierrez-Reed’s control, including the mishandling of weapons by Baldwin. At trial they cited sanctions and findings by state workplace safety investigators.
Prosecutors did not come close to proving where the live rounds originated and failed to fully investigate an Albuquerque-based ammunition supplier, the defense said at trial.
Lead attorney Jason Bowles told jurors that no one in the cast and crew thought there were live rounds on set and Gutierrez-Reed could not have foreseen that Baldwin would “go off-script” when he pointed the revolver at Hutchins. Investigators found no video recordings of the shooting.
“It was not in the script for Mr. Baldwin to point the weapon,” Bowles said. “She didn’t know that Mr. Baldwin was going to do what he did.”
To drive the point home, Bowles played a video outtake in which Baldwin fired a revolver loaded with blanks — including a shot after a director calls “cut.”
On the day of the shooting, Bowles said, Gutierrez-Reed alone was segregated in a police car away from others, becoming a convenient scapegoat.
“You had a production company on a shoestring budget, an A-list actor that was really running the show,” Bowles said. “At the end, they had somebody they could all blame.”
Dozens of witnesses testified during the 10-day trial, from FBI experts in firearms and crime-scene forensics to a camera dolly operator who described the fatal gunshot and watching Hutchins go flush and lose feeling in her legs before death.
The prosecution painstakingly assembled photographic evidence it said traced the arrival and spread of live rounds on set, and argued that Gutierrez-Reed repeatedly missed opportunities to ensure safety and treated basic gun protocols as optional.
The defense cast doubt on the relevance of photographs of ammunition, noting FBI testimony that live rounds can’t be fully distinguished from dummy ones on sight.
Bowles began his closing arguments by highlighting testimony from “Rust” armorer Sarah Zachry saying that, in a panic in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, she threw out ammunition from guns used by actors other than Baldwin. That undermined all evidence about the sources of ammunition, the defense argued.
Prosecutors said six live rounds found on set bear mostly identical characteristics and don’t match live rounds seized from the movie’s supplier in Albuquerque. Defense attorneys said the cluttered supply office was not searched until a month after the shooting, undermining the significance of physical evidence.
Gutierrez-Reed also faces a second charge, of evidence tampering, stemming from accusations that she handed a small bag of possible narcotics to another crew member after the shooting to avoid detection.
The felony charges against Gutierrez-Reed carry a possible sentence of up to three years in prison.
