Gun handler sent to prison after Baldwin killed woman on set

Santa Fe: Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the chief weapons handler for the Western movie Rust, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison over the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was shot when actor Alec Baldwin was handling a gun during the film’s production in 2021.

In March, Gutierrez-Reed, 27, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for mistakenly loading a live round into a revolver Baldwin was using on a movie set in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Hannah Gutierrez-Reed with her lawyer Jason Bowles.Credit: AP

“You alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon,” Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer told Gutierrez-Reed as she handed down the sentence.

Hutchins’ friends from the film industry paid tribute to her creativity and kindness from the courtroom and over video. They also lambasted Gutierrez-Reed’s breaches in firearms safety protocol.

“I struggle to deal with this repeatedly being called an accident, because it was not an accident – it was negligence,” said Jen White, a film industry colleague.

The shooting, which stunned Hollywood, is believed to be the first time in modern cinema that a member of a film crew or cast was killed by a live round accidentally loaded into a gun.

Baldwin’s trial is set for July 10 after a grand jury indicted him on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in January.

Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyer Jason Bowles requested she be given probation, but prosecutors argued for a full 18 months after saying she lacked remorse.

“I beg you please don’t give me more time,” Gutierrez-Reed told the court, adding that her heart ached for Hutchins’ family. “The jury has found me at fault for this tragedy but that doesn’t make me a monster, that makes me human.”

In a video call from Kiev the Ukraine-born cinematographer’s mother mourned her daughter’s death and her young grandson Andros being left without a mother.

“It’s the hardest thing to lose a child,” said Olga Solovey, whose comments were translated into English in subtitles.

Prosecutor Kari Morrissey pointed to phone calls by Gutierrez-Reed from jail in which she said the jurors were “idiots”, the judge had been “paid off”, and that she continued to blame Baldwin and others for the shooting.

Gutierrez-Reed had already spent a month in Santa Fe county jail after her conviction.

Film historians such as Alan Rode have look to back to the early part of the last century to find examples of Hollywood cast or crew killed by live rounds accidentally loaded into guns.

Previous on-set fatal shootings of actors Brandon Lee in 1993 and Jon-Erik Hexum in 1984 involved blank rounds.

Reuters

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here.