More than two and a half years after a live round ended up in a prop gun on the set of the film “Rust” in October 2021, armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed, convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in March, was sentenced Monday to 18 months in prison.
According to Fox News, Reed was responsible for firearms on the western movie set in New Mexico, where the Alec Baldwin western was being filmed. Baldwin was actually holding the gun when it discharged, sending a bullet into Hutchins. Reed was working as the film’s armorer, and she was responsible for firearms safety on the set.
Reed was convicted early last month by New Mexico jury. She drew the maximum allowable sentence.
CBS News is reporting that Reed had requested probation as an alternative to jail time. But Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer was having none of it. Quoted by the network, Judge Sommer state, “I find what you did constitutes a serious violent offense.”
Somehow, a live cartridge was loaded into the prop gun—a real single-action firearm—and handed to Baldwin, who was rehearsing a scene. Baldwin claims he did not press the trigger, an assertion firearms experts have disputed since the shooting.
Live ammunition on film sets is traditionally forbidden, and it is the armorer’s responsibility to enforce that rule. Hundreds of westerns, war movies and crime dramas have been filmed for decades without mishap, during which literally millions of blank rounds have been fired.
Fox News quoted Judge Sommer stating, “You were the armorer, the one that’s to be between a safe weapon and a weapon that could kill someone. You alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon. But for you, Mrs. Hutchins would be alive, a husband would have his partner and a little boy would have his mother.”
The tragedy has been amplified to some extent by the involvement of Baldwin as not only the lead actor but the producer of the picture. He has made statements in the past about gun control. He has also appeared in other films where firearms were part of the plot, including ‘The Hunt for Red October” and a remake of “The Getaway.”
Gutierrez Reed is the daughter of legendary firearms exhibition shooter and competitor Thell Reed. He became famous as one of the six “Combat Masters” of the “South Western Combat Pistol League” during the 1960s. Thell Reed has also worked as an armorer and firearms trainer in several movie sets.
