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This story has been so sad from the beginning. In October 2021 Alec Baldwin held what he believed to be an unloaded prop gun while filming Rust, an indie movie he was starring in and producing. By accident, an armorer (the crew member who supervises the handling of weapons) gave Alec a gun that was actually loaded with live ammunition the armorer had brought on set herself. Both director Joel Souza and cinematographer Halyna Hutchins were shot while Alec was holding the gun, and only Souza survived. In January 2023 Alec and the film’s armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed were charged with involuntary manslaughter. Alec’s charges were dropped a few months later, however he was indicted again earlier this year. Last week Hannah was found guilty and immediately taken into custody to await sentencing. According to TMZ, Hannah is having a “tough time” in jail.
Jail is hell for Hannah Gutierrez-Reed … the “Rust” armorer is having a tough time behind bars as she awaits sentencing for her manslaughter conviction.
Hannah’s lawyer, Jason Bowles, tells TMZ … she is having a really difficult time in her new digs, a New Mexico detention center.
We’re told Hannah’s family is already setting up a time to visit her … and her loved ones have been devastated by her guilty verdict for involuntary manslaughter in the accidental shooting death of Halyna Hutchins.
Hannah was found guilty Wednesday and was quickly booked into the Santa Fe County Adult Detention Facility, posing for a mug shot.
As you know … Hannah was the armorer on the “Rust” movie set when Alec Baldwin shot Halyna with a pop gun loaded with live ammunition during a scene.
Hannah’s lawyer says they will be appealing her conviction, seeking to overturn the verdict and judgment.
While Hannah was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, she was found not guilty of evidence tampering.
Remember, Hannah’s defense blamed the accident on her being overworked by the production, and her legal team insisted Halyna’s fatal shooting wasn’t on Hannah at all.
Hannah’s attorney says the courtroom was shocked when the guilty verdict was returned … and it sounds like she’s dealing with shock of her own as she tries to adjust to life behind bars.
Her sentencing date has not been set yet, but she’s facing up to 18 months in prison.
When this happened back in 2021, George Clooney commented on just how many safety checks and precautions had to be ignored to result in a fatal accident. I haven’t worked with Clooney (yet!), but from my limited experience in off off off off Broadway theatre, I can vouch that we would go through endless checks during rehearsals and before each performance. Whether it was a lift, a fight, or handling a weapon, we had to practice going through the steps at half speed and gradually kept going until we ran it at show speed with no hitches. Again, before each show.
Being overworked explains why you may have done your job poorly (if not criminally); it doesn’t take away your basic responsibility to do your job right. I would think that applies tenfold for jobs related to public and workplace safety. To be sure, the production team should be held accountable too, and it’s unclear at this time how Alec’s role as producer factors into that (there are lots of levels of producing credits). Hannah, who is only 26 now, was clearly too young and inexperienced for this job. The production team is responsible because they hired her, but Hannah is also responsible because she took the job. Still, I have no doubt that she’s in “hell” and “shock” right now in jail. But you know who’s also having a difficult time? Halyna Hutchins’ husband and son, her parents and sister.
She shouldn’t be taking this fall alone. Why are real guns even needed? Everything can be faked now and there are fake guns that look real. Add in effects afterward.
I feel she was the scape-goat for the producers and everyone else who bears a ton of responsibility. Yes, she was overworked, but ultimately the safety officer had just as much responsibility.
She’s a scapegoat, but also in that job you have to stand your ground, period. She should have walked off the set that morning like the camera crew members, who I’m sure also really needed the paycheck. She took a job no experienced armorer would take and then didn’t follow protocols and someone died. Jail is what happens after that level of negligence.
She’s a scapegoat, but also in that job you have to stand your ground, period. She should have walked off the set that morning like the camera crew members, who I’m sure also really needed the paycheck. She took a job no experienced armorer would take and then didn’t follow protocols and someone died. Jail is what happens after that level of negligence.
@Pinkosaurus Yes, she is culpable here, but not the only one. The ones with more power and influence shouldn’t be getting off scot free.
She brought live ammo to the set and allowed the guns to be used for target practice by the crew. She failed to apply basic common sense when it comes to gun safety. Others should have intervened, but the problem originated with her.
I think Baldwin is a pig but she’s not a scapegoat for this. She was responsible for handling the guns and ammo, normal process is that those things are out only when needed and the armorer is on set to ensure gun safety when in use but the she left the guns and ammo just lying around on set and unsecured. Her job was to keep the guns and ammo secured & inspect the guns to ensure no live rounds were in the gun prior to handing to the actors. She appears to have been the person who brought the live rounds to set and the reason those live rounds were commingled with dummy rounds https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/07/movies/rust-live-ammunition.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bk0.dli3.o2Gi0Z4H0hHd&smid=url-share
Then there’s the issue of the bag of cocaine she had on set
She didn’t go down alone. David Halls pleaded no contest to negligent use of a deadly weapon and got six months probation.
He probably got less of a sentence because of his role in the situation and the fact that he pled no contest, whereas she was more directly responsible and left her hands in the fate of the jury and not the prosecutor. Still, probation is no picnic.
It seems like the assistant director should be held equally culpable, but he got off with a much lighter punishment.
I totally agree. she was hired BECAUSE she is not qualified and cheap not in spite of it. the people who hired her to save money as much at fault.
I agree that this is what happens when you go cheap but she has apparently been reckless on another set. She fired a gun off too close to an actor.
This was a low low low budget movie. This is why it chose to hire an inexperienced armor who also had to double as a prop assistant. Rubber guns and CGI effects (especially this period of weapon which creates both a muzzle flash and smoke from the chamber) cost money. It’s just more cost effective to use the guns you already have on hand using safety protocols that have been proven to work over 100 years of moviemaking. This production cut corners and Hutchins paid for those decisions with her life.
So cost-effective in relation to someone’s life? ONE life is one too many for how many 100s of years. Brandon Lee, Jon-Erik Hexum, and Charles Chandler might like to weigh in (if only they were alive to do so).
Also, why was AB messing around with guns that weren’t directly placed in his hand by someone who knew they were safe? It’s kind of dumb to just grab weapons and start flailing them around, even if you believe it’s fake or not loaded… Maybe actors shouldn’t be grabbing stuff just because it’s lying around? He sounds just as culpable as she is, imo.
That’s not what happened. They were filming.
Baldwin is human garbage, but he was acting – not grabbing weapons and waving them around.
Does anyone get a sense of remorse from Hannah?? I can’t quite wrap my head around this woman failing to take responsibility for being the person who brought live ammunition to the set. I don’t think anyone thinks she planned for this tragedy to take place… but what a profound lack of judgement. and I don’t think being in your early 20s counts as an adequate excuse
No, I don’t get the feeling she feels sorry for Halyna’s death or Joel being injured as much as she feels unfairly targeted when Alec pulled the trigger.
An article that came out just after this happened says that, after hours, some crew and extras?? helped themselves to the guns for target shooting and may have left live ammo in a gun when it was replaced. Before being used it should have been checked, however. But I haven’t seen this story again.
there never should have been live rounds on the set at all. they were messing around with the guns for fun, not following protocol.
I hope someday that using actual guns becomes a thing of the past. it’s so unnecessary.
Alphie, thank you! I get that there are other people whose responsibility shouldn’t be ignored. But she was directly responsible for handling and storage of those guns and brought live ammunition on set.
“I don’t think being in your early 20s counts as an adequate excuse”
I’m so peeved by this excuse. If you find people in their 20s mature enough to join the armed forces and own guns, or in fact hire them for a position like Hanna’s this excuse is not acceptable. What would be the age when she is deemed fully responsible for doing her job or her actions in general?
Exactly there are 20 year Olds in charge of the lives of children every day. Following protocol is NOT beyond the capability of a 26 year old. AT ALL. She didn’t need addtl support to do that part of her job right
Age 18: one enlists in the military. Age 22: one graduates from Nursing school as an R.N. and starts as a new nurse, being oriented, supervised, knowing and following protocols and taking care of people’s physical and emotional health. Age 26 one graduates from Medical School as an M.D. and starts Residency training/new M.D. in the specialty of choice.
26 is a grown azz adult.
Will she be Alex Baldwin’s defense? It was her, not me.
Likely!
However, the FBI also proved he pulled the trigger so he’s not entirely innocent in this.
Imagine his pepino wife’s shenanigans if he gets judged guilty 😄
At the end of the day, I think it was the right verdict. She’s the main person responsible for the gun safety on that set. If she couldn’t keep the props ammo free, and she felt overworked and overwhelmed, she was not keeping the set safe. Even though this was a tragic accident, she’s not without blame.
SHE didn’t follow protocol. And Halyna lost HER life because of that.
Nothing else is relevant (age, overworking, supervisors etc)
I’m sure this is tough for her, but it’s a pretty clear case of involuntary manslaughter for the jury. I’m surprised her attorney didn’t prepare her better for this. This is such a sad case & there’s no reason a woman needed to lose her life, regardless of “overwork.”
Doctors and CPS workers are also overworked, and Id like to see them get away with malpractice or negligence of duties resulting in the death of a client with that excuse.
Very bizar imo. So all the arms sellers can also be jailed? Good to know..
There should be a way to hold them responsible, yes, but your analogy doesn’t fit here. SHE brought the live ammo onto the set. SHE loaded the gun. It was HER job to make sure all the prop guns were safe. The gun sellers are several steps removed from HER negligence.
Yeah, I still don’t understand why she brought a loaded gun from home, and how she mistook it for the work prop gun with blanks?
It’s interesting that her father is allegedly one of the best amorers in Hollywood, and he trained her.
Also that when the shooting happened, she immediately got another crew member to hide the weed she had on her at work, then locked herself in a room and cursed that she wasn’t going to be able to show her face in Hollywood ever again.
So yeah, she sounds really bad at her job, yet is the daughter of ‘the best’.
It will be interesting to hear Alec’s perspective on the due diligence they did when hiring her. Or if she lied about her experience and skill?
The whole thing is a senseless and preventable tragedy.
I watched this trial from start to finish.
The jury got it right, it came down it was her responsibility to check the bullets. I don’t know why they even charged her with tampering with evidence. It was over the accusation she gave a woman on set a bag of cocaine to get rid of. And the woman claimed she threw the bag away. So there was no testing and just on her word. Which honestly, she came across as sketchy to me.
And the defense made a major fumble. Having the last safety witness testify that Hannah or anyone on set could have shut down production due to safety concerns. And everyone was expecting the defense to call her stepfather. Thell Reed to the stand as a weapons expert and legend in the industry. To discuss that he was the one that trained her. And they never called him to the stand. Which may have helped her.
Her conviction is a fourth degree felony. Which means she will serve up to 18 months and a $5,000 fine. No one is expecting her to get the full 18 months. But with the felony it will mean she can never legally own a gun again. Which is the real justice here. She was sloppy and disorganized. I think she either brought the live rounds on set by accident and mixed the dummy and lives without paying attention. Or she was taking live bullets and making them dummies. As the prop master Sarah kept throwing the dummies away after they shot scenes.
With Hannah, again, being disorganized mixed the live and dummies not realizing she hadn’t changed the bullets yet.
She will be sentenced in April. But at the time of her conviction the Judge didn’t say a specific date.
Alec’s trial is expected to start on July 10.
That’s a very interesting recap, thank you!
Thanks. It’s always nice to hear from someone who observed the process.
I prefer people with zero knowledge of the proceeding spouting off ignorantly! Ha!
Thanks!
I’d like to see Alec’s role acknowledged in this too, but she’s the one who brought live ammunition on set.
It shouldn’t have been an option that she could walk away free after a crew member’s death and an injury to another without taking responsibility for some of what happened. Young age and inexperience aren’t excuses.
She isn’t showing remorse either, the first thing she did was commenting that her career was over, not OMG I injured two people due to my mess.
He has been indicted by a grand jury and his case is going to trial, so, Id say his role is being acknowledged.
It’s going to be difficult to prove culpability. I don’t think they have much of a case, from what we have seen so far, but who knows.
Her father is also an armorer and known in the business. She should have known better. Her incompetence and, most likely, awe of the people she was working with resulted in a death and wounding. She may not have meant for it to happen but it did. She is responsible because it was her job to ensure the safety of everyone on the set. I think she was a silly, immature woman that was in way over her head. She was probably cheap and it fit with the budget.
I think the 18 month sentence for involuntary manslaughter is too light and her lack of remorse is extremely disturbing.
Reed allowed & participated in target practicing on the set with crew members, using live ammo, during breaks. She had herself photo’d with 2 gunbelts looped over her shoulders. She brought & used drugs on the set and “partied” hard.
Maybe Daddy stuck his neck way out to get her the job, but little Hannah was irresponsible & deserves every minute oif jail time she gets, plus more.
That set was a cesspool of toxicity. She was barred by the director and Baldwin from being on set during the shooting scene- which was against the guidelines. A random case of bullets was brought for the shoot – without being inspected. I feel sorry for her. This was her first job and the director was set on getting her fired and hiring his friend. There was an incredible amount of juvenile and unprofessional behavior on set from all involved. She was in over her head. Someone lost their life. There are no winners in this.
Not denying the juvenile and messed up behavior all around on this set – right down to multiple people walking off that day, which put them behind schedule (filling in with scabs?) and contributing to Baldwin pressuring her to hurry up and load the gun – but it’s entirely possible she was getting canned because of her own unprofessional conduct. She was a nepo hire from the start and might have been found out as a bad hire pretty quickly.
She was definitely in over her head.
Serious question : why do they use weapons on set that are real enough to cause hurt ? With pratical effects, can’t you reproduce the effect it’s supposed to have ?
If I remember correctly, the scene they were rehearsing required a closeup of the gun firing, meaning the camera had to see the hammer cocking and the trigger moving. There had to be “bullets” in the cylinder because if there aren’t it’s very obvious the gun is empty. What they usually do in that situation is load dummies that don’t have any of the ingredients of live ammunition so absolutely nothing will happen if you pull the trigger, not even the pop of a blank. This was a major f*ck up, by multiple people.
The thing I go back to is that in the 30 years since Brandon Lee was killed this sort of death has not occurred on any Hollywood production as I can recall. And think of the hundreds, probably thousands, of films and TV shows in the past 30 years that have heavily used firearms. No one died. Until this incident. It is obvious the production crew, including Baldwin, ignored the strict safety guidelines put in place after Lee died. They all need to be accountable.
I was actually thinking about Lee’s death when I asked that question because it happened a long time ago and it can still happen. You can do pretty much do anything with visual effects and computers, I don’t really understand why they don’t make fake guns and add everything afterward in post production. I do understand that this particular movie might not have had the budget for big digital effects though.
No matter how badly she screwed up I do feel like the people running things should bear some responsibility for hiring her.
Plus I find it a little weird that a young, not wealthy (latina?) woman should be the only person punished.
@NJGR The production company was fined, David Halls took a plea deal, Alec Baldwin goes on trial in July. This isn’t about one woman taking the fall for everyone. She was the head armorer and she loaded the bullets. It’s in her police interviews.
it was literally her job to make sure the weapon was safe and NOT filled with live ammunition.
There may be multiple levels of responsibility here, but she is the most responsible.
The issue is the recoil and the way the gun jumps in a person’s hand when fired. That would be incredibly difficult for an actor to fake, especially in close up. You take the firing stance and your body absorbs the opposite reaction from the bullet coming out of the gun. Basic physics. An actor could handle the shooting of the gun, but the handling the recoil is an involuntary reflex. It’s why they use blanks and there are never supposed to be real bullets on the set.
I’m sure there’s an actor out there with supreme physicality skills who could do it realistically, but it’s not within normal screen acting skill sets.
Yes but if it’s difficult to fake the firing of a gun why not simply send the actors to a training camp to pratice firing real guns in a safe environment ? It’s kind of the work of an actor to be able to fake reactions, even involuntary ones. (I’m not trying to find excuses, I’m just trying to understand why we still use real and potentially dangerous weapons on set).
Hannah had a job. One job and she did it badly. She deserves to go to jail. Still unsure if Alec does, but he bears some responsibility not just as the producer, but as an actor handling a loaded weapon. I remember back in the 80s when actor Jon-Erik Hexum was killed on set by the wading from a blank-loaded gun. Same with Brandon Lee. Have to be aware and careful with guns. Period!
Allegedly, he was rushing her and telling her to hurry up. I believe that’s why the grand jury is allowing his case to go to trial.
But ultimately, it is her responsibility to ensure the safety of those around her. Even with some gasbag yelling in your ear.
You would think the armorer job would go to an individual with many years experience, as guns are extremely dangerous. But they gave the job to a nepo baby instead, to cut costs. Very sad.
All the armorers they offered the job to turned it down. For reasons like, not being able to meet their payment quote. Or they refused to hire them and an armorer assistant. Or the main reason, they wanted the job split in two. 1/2 Armorer 1/2 Prop Assistant. And they really gave Hannah shit for not focusing her time on being a prop assistant. She did push back about it, but not enough.
The movie had a 7 million budget, while it’s considered low budget they had the money for a proper armorer. Hannah just wanted the job to get on her resume.
I know I’m late to the post but thanks for all your comments on this, Flamingo–they’ve been very elucidating.
This entire story is bananas, and really sad.
What I can’t get over is why in the world she brought live ammunition to set at all, and how a professional could get it mixed up with blanks.
This looked like a nepotism hire. This is a job with a lot of responsibility. She seemed poorly equipped to take it on, and this is a huge price to pay, but the price for her negligence was even bigger.
WHY was live ammo on set in the first place???
We will probably never know. The prosecutor offered Hannah a plea deal if she was honest about how the live bullets got on set. She turned it down. Now she can think about her choices in jail and sentencing.
No sympathy. It was her responsibility and she failed. She also wasn’t qualified for the job and used her connections to get it. It’s unfortunate that a woman died due to her incompetence.
Look at the smarm on this nepo baby’s face. I can kinda look past her being worried about her career when the incident happened because of shock. Very few people act right when in shock. But those expressions in the courtroom make quite clear who she’s sorry for. She shouldn’t have been hired or, if she somehow lied about her ability, they should have halted production and found a replacement as soon as they realised she wasn’t up to it. Now the production is likely permanently shelved because no one will want to pay to see this. So much crap judgement in the name of cutting corners. My only sympathies are with Halyna and her family. I also lament Halyna’s career, which may have been the only career worth a damn within this entire bunch.