Rust' armorer convicted of involuntary manslaughter in fatal shooting by Alec Baldwin on movie set
By MORGAN LEE
Yesterday
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A jury convicted a movie weapons supervisor of involuntary manslaughter Wednesday in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin during a rehearsal on the set of the Western movie “Rust.”
The verdict against movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed assigned new blame in the October 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins after an assistant director last year pleaded no contest to negligent handling of a firearm.
Gutierrez-Reed also had faced a second charge of tampering with evidence, stemming from accusations that she handed a small bag of possible narcotics to another crew member after the shooting to avoid detection. She was found not guilty on that count.
Immediately after the verdict was read in court, the judge ordered the 26-year-old armorer placed into the custody of deputies. Lead attorney Jason Bowles said afterward that Gutierrez-Reed will appeal the conviction, which carries a penalty of up to 18 months in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Santa Fe-based state district court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer did not immediately set a sentencing date.
Baldwin, the lead actor and a co-producer on “Rust,” was indicted by a grand jury in January on a charge of involuntary manslaughter. He was pointing a gun at Hutchins on a movie set outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, when the gun went off, killing the cinematographer and wounding director Joel Souza.
The trial was a preamble to Baldwin's trial scheduled in July. He has pleaded not guilty.
Messages seeking comment about Wednesday's verdict from Baldwin’s spokeswoman and a lawyer were not immediately returned.
Prosecutors said at trial that Gutierrez-Reed unknowingly brought live ammunition onto the movie set, and it remained there for at least 12 days before the fatal shooting, giving the armorer plenty of time to remove it.
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 jurors. “Hannah Gutierrez failed to maintain firearms safety, making a fatal accident willful and foreseeable.”
Prosecutors also contended that 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.
An attorney for Hutchins' parents and sister issued a statement expressing their satisfaction with Wednesday's verdict.
“Today was the first trial and conviction in the criminal justice process,” said the statement from Gloria Allred on behalf of parents Olga Solovey and Anatolli Androsovych and Hutchins’ sister, Svetlana Zemko. “We look forward to the justice system continuing to make sure that everyone else who is responsible for Halyna’s death is required to face the legal consequences.”
Inside the courtroom Wednesday, Gutierrez-Reed's mother reacted with dismay at the conviction, bursting into tears and cursing the proceedings as her daughter was led away.
Defense attorneys told jurors that the problems on the set extended far beyond Gutierrez-Reed’s control, including the mishandling of weapons by Baldwin, citing sanctions and findings by state workplace safety investigators.
The defense also cast doubt on accusations that Gutierrez-Reed brought live rounds to the set and said an Albuquerque-based ammunition supplier was never fully investigated.
Juror Alberto Sanchez said Gutierrez-Reed could have paused work on the set to address safety issues. Jurors concluded she brought live ammunition on set, whether she knew it or not, Sanchez said outside of court after jurors were dismissed.
“Pretty much it was just that (she) never did the safety checks,” said Sanchez, whose work nearby in Los Alamos has involved safety decisions. “Never checked the rounds, to pull them out to shake them. I mean, if she’d have done that this wouldn’t have happened.”
Bowles, the defense attorney, had 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 from another day 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 had 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 had 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.
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.
___
This story has been updated to correct the last name of Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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Rust' armorer convicted of involuntary manslaughter in fatal shooting by Alec Baldwin on movie set
By MORGAN LEE
Yesterday
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A jury convicted a movie weapons supervisor of involuntary manslaughter Wednesday in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin during a rehearsal on the set of the Western movie “Rust.”
The verdict against movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed assigned new blame in the October 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins after an assistant director last year pleaded no contest to negligent handling of a firearm.
Gutierrez-Reed also had faced a second charge of tampering with evidence, stemming from accusations that she handed a small bag of possible narcotics to another crew member after the shooting to avoid detection. She was found not guilty on that count.
Immediately after the verdict was read in court, the judge ordered the 26-year-old armorer placed into the custody of deputies. Lead attorney Jason Bowles said afterward that Gutierrez-Reed will appeal the conviction, which carries a penalty of up to 18 months in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Santa Fe-based state district court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer did not immediately set a sentencing date.
Baldwin, the lead actor and a co-producer on “Rust,” was indicted by a grand jury in January on a charge of involuntary manslaughter. He was pointing a gun at Hutchins on a movie set outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, when the gun went off, killing the cinematographer and wounding director Joel Souza.
The trial was a preamble to Baldwin's trial scheduled in July. He has pleaded not guilty.
Messages seeking comment about Wednesday's verdict from Baldwin’s spokeswoman and a lawyer were not immediately returned.
Prosecutors said at trial that Gutierrez-Reed unknowingly brought live ammunition onto the movie set, and it remained there for at least 12 days before the fatal shooting, giving the armorer plenty of time to remove it.
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 jurors. “Hannah Gutierrez failed to maintain firearms safety, making a fatal accident willful and foreseeable.”
Prosecutors also contended that 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.
An attorney for Hutchins' parents and sister issued a statement expressing their satisfaction with Wednesday's verdict.
“Today was the first trial and conviction in the criminal justice process,” said the statement from Gloria Allred on behalf of parents Olga Solovey and Anatolli Androsovych and Hutchins’ sister, Svetlana Zemko. “We look forward to the justice system continuing to make sure that everyone else who is responsible for Halyna’s death is required to face the legal consequences.”
Inside the courtroom Wednesday, Gutierrez-Reed's mother reacted with dismay at the conviction, bursting into tears and cursing the proceedings as her daughter was led away.
Defense attorneys told jurors that the problems on the set extended far beyond Gutierrez-Reed’s control, including the mishandling of weapons by Baldwin, citing sanctions and findings by state workplace safety investigators.
The defense also cast doubt on accusations that Gutierrez-Reed brought live rounds to the set and said an Albuquerque-based ammunition supplier was never fully investigated.
Juror Alberto Sanchez said Gutierrez-Reed could have paused work on the set to address safety issues. Jurors concluded she brought live ammunition on set, whether she knew it or not, Sanchez said outside of court after jurors were dismissed.
“Pretty much it was just that (she) never did the safety checks,” said Sanchez, whose work nearby in Los Alamos has involved safety decisions. “Never checked the rounds, to pull them out to shake them. I mean, if she’d have done that this wouldn’t have happened.”
Bowles, the defense attorney, had 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 from another day 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 had 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 had 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.
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.
___
This story has been updated to correct the last name of Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer.
Looks like it will be appealed. I wonder if they will ever sort this out?
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,154
Judge considers dismissing indictment against Alec Baldwin in fatal shooting of cinematographer
By MORGAN LEE
Today
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico judge is considering Alec Baldwin's request to dismiss a grand jury indictment against him at a scheduled court hearing Friday.
The indictment in January charged Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on Oct. 21, 2021, at a movie ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe.
Baldwin, a lead actor and co-producer on the Western “Rust,” has pleaded not guilty to the charge and his attorneys have urged dismissal. They have argued that prosecutors flouted the rules of grand jury proceedings to divert attention away from exculpatory evidence and witnesses. The involuntary manslaughter charge carries a maximum sentence of 1.5 years in prison.
During rehearsal, Baldwin was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins when the revolver went off, killing Hutchins and injuring Joel Souza, the director. Baldwin has maintained that he pulled back the gun’s hammer, but not the trigger.
Baldwin’s motion to dismiss the indictment also argues that the grand jury received inaccurate and one-sided testimony about the revolver involved in the fatal shooting.
Special prosecutors say they followed grand jury protocols and accuse Baldwin of “shameless” attempts to escape culpability, highlighting contradictions in his statements to law enforcement, to workplace safety regulators and in a televised interview. A jury trial is scheduled for July.
Prosecutors turned their full attention to Baldwin after a judge in April sentenced movie weapons supervisor Hannah Gutierrez-Reed to the maximum of 1.5 years at a state penitentiary on an involuntary manslaughter conviction for Hutchins’ death.
Prosecutors last year dismissed an earlier involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin after being told the gun he was holding might have been modified before the shooting and malfunctioned. A new analysis of the gun last year enabled prosecutors to reboot the case.
The indictment against Baldwin offers two possible standards for prosecutors to pursue. One would be based on the negligent use of a firearm. An alternative is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Baldwin caused Hutchins’ death without “due caution” or “circumspection,” also defined as “an act committed with total disregard or indifference for the safety of others.”
Defense attorneys also say prosecutors steered the grand jury away from testimony by witnesses including the film's director, as well as assistant director and safety coordinator Dave Halls and props master Sarah Zachry. Halls last year pleaded no contest to negligent handling of a firearm and completed a sentence of six months of unsupervised probation.
Baldwin figured prominently in testimony and closing arguments that highlighted his authority as a co-producer and the lead actor on “Rust.” Both the prosecution and defense in Gutierrez-Reed’s trial dissected video footage of Baldwin before the fatal shooting for clues about breakdowns in firearms safety.
Prosecutors said Gutierrez-Reed unwittingly brought live ammunition onto the set of “Rust,” where it was expressly prohibited, and failed to follow basic gun safety protocols.
Gutierrez-Reed is appealing the conviction, decided by a jury in March, to a higher court but hasn’t yet filed detailed arguments. At sentencing, Gutierrez-Reed told the judge she tried to do her best on the set despite not having “proper time, resources and staffing.”
After the shooting in New Mexico, the filming of “Rust” resumed but in Montana, under an agreement with Hutchins’ husband, Matthew Hutchins, which made him an executive producer. A wrongful death lawsuit in civil court by Matthew Hutchins and the Hutchins' son was settled under undisclosed terms.
Defense attorneys say Baldwin last year was offered a deal to plead to a “minor offense” before a grand jury was convened, but the offer that was “inexplicably retracted” before the deadline to respond.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A jury convicted a movie weapons supervisor of involuntary manslaughter Wednesday in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin during a rehearsal on the set of the Western movie “Rust.”
The verdict against movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed assigned new blame in the October 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins after an assistant director last year pleaded no contest to negligent handling of a firearm.
Gutierrez-Reed also had faced a second charge of tampering with evidence, stemming from accusations that she handed a small bag of possible narcotics to another crew member after the shooting to avoid detection. She was found not guilty on that count.
Immediately after the verdict was read in court, the judge ordered the 26-year-old armorer placed into the custody of deputies. Lead attorney Jason Bowles said afterward that Gutierrez-Reed will appeal the conviction, which carries a penalty of up to 18 months in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Santa Fe-based state district court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer did not immediately set a sentencing date.
Baldwin, the lead actor and a co-producer on “Rust,” was indicted by a grand jury in January on a charge of involuntary manslaughter. He was pointing a gun at Hutchins on a movie set outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, when the gun went off, killing the cinematographer and wounding director Joel Souza.
The trial was a preamble to Baldwin's trial scheduled in July. He has pleaded not guilty.
Messages seeking comment about Wednesday's verdict from Baldwin’s spokeswoman and a lawyer were not immediately returned.
Prosecutors said at trial that Gutierrez-Reed unknowingly brought live ammunition onto the movie set, and it remained there for at least 12 days before the fatal shooting, giving the armorer plenty of time to remove it.
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 jurors. “Hannah Gutierrez failed to maintain firearms safety, making a fatal accident willful and foreseeable.”
Prosecutors also contended that 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.
An attorney for Hutchins' parents and sister issued a statement expressing their satisfaction with Wednesday's verdict.
“Today was the first trial and conviction in the criminal justice process,” said the statement from Gloria Allred on behalf of parents Olga Solovey and Anatolli Androsovych and Hutchins’ sister, Svetlana Zemko. “We look forward to the justice system continuing to make sure that everyone else who is responsible for Halyna’s death is required to face the legal consequences.”
Inside the courtroom Wednesday, Gutierrez-Reed's mother reacted with dismay at the conviction, bursting into tears and cursing the proceedings as her daughter was led away.
Defense attorneys told jurors that the problems on the set extended far beyond Gutierrez-Reed’s control, including the mishandling of weapons by Baldwin, citing sanctions and findings by state workplace safety investigators.
The defense also cast doubt on accusations that Gutierrez-Reed brought live rounds to the set and said an Albuquerque-based ammunition supplier was never fully investigated.
Juror Alberto Sanchez said Gutierrez-Reed could have paused work on the set to address safety issues. Jurors concluded she brought live ammunition on set, whether she knew it or not, Sanchez said outside of court after jurors were dismissed.
“Pretty much it was just that (she) never did the safety checks,” said Sanchez, whose work nearby in Los Alamos has involved safety decisions. “Never checked the rounds, to pull them out to shake them. I mean, if she’d have done that this wouldn’t have happened.”
Bowles, the defense attorney, had 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 from another day 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 had 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 had 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.
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.
___
This story has been updated to correct the last name of Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Looks like it will be appealed. I wonder if they will ever sort this out?
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico judge is considering Alec Baldwin's request to dismiss a grand jury indictment against him at a scheduled court hearing Friday.
The indictment in January charged Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on Oct. 21, 2021, at a movie ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe.
Baldwin, a lead actor and co-producer on the Western “Rust,” has pleaded not guilty to the charge and his attorneys have urged dismissal. They have argued that prosecutors flouted the rules of grand jury proceedings to divert attention away from exculpatory evidence and witnesses. The involuntary manslaughter charge carries a maximum sentence of 1.5 years in prison.
During rehearsal, Baldwin was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins when the revolver went off, killing Hutchins and injuring Joel Souza, the director. Baldwin has maintained that he pulled back the gun’s hammer, but not the trigger.
Baldwin’s motion to dismiss the indictment also argues that the grand jury received inaccurate and one-sided testimony about the revolver involved in the fatal shooting.
Special prosecutors say they followed grand jury protocols and accuse Baldwin of “shameless” attempts to escape culpability, highlighting contradictions in his statements to law enforcement, to workplace safety regulators and in a televised interview. A jury trial is scheduled for July.
Prosecutors turned their full attention to Baldwin after a judge in April sentenced movie weapons supervisor Hannah Gutierrez-Reed to the maximum of 1.5 years at a state penitentiary on an involuntary manslaughter conviction for Hutchins’ death.
Prosecutors last year dismissed an earlier involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin after being told the gun he was holding might have been modified before the shooting and malfunctioned. A new analysis of the gun last year enabled prosecutors to reboot the case.
The indictment against Baldwin offers two possible standards for prosecutors to pursue. One would be based on the negligent use of a firearm. An alternative is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Baldwin caused Hutchins’ death without “due caution” or “circumspection,” also defined as “an act committed with total disregard or indifference for the safety of others.”
Defense attorneys also say prosecutors steered the grand jury away from testimony by witnesses including the film's director, as well as assistant director and safety coordinator Dave Halls and props master Sarah Zachry. Halls last year pleaded no contest to negligent handling of a firearm and completed a sentence of six months of unsupervised probation.
The two-week trial of Gutierrez-Reed gave attorneys for Baldwin and the public a unusual window into how the actor's own trial could unfold.
Baldwin figured prominently in testimony and closing arguments that highlighted his authority as a co-producer and the lead actor on “Rust.” Both the prosecution and defense in Gutierrez-Reed’s trial dissected video footage of Baldwin before the fatal shooting for clues about breakdowns in firearms safety.
Prosecutors said Gutierrez-Reed unwittingly brought live ammunition onto the set of “Rust,” where it was expressly prohibited, and failed to follow basic gun safety protocols.
Gutierrez-Reed is appealing the conviction, decided by a jury in March, to a higher court but hasn’t yet filed detailed arguments. At sentencing, Gutierrez-Reed told the judge she tried to do her best on the set despite not having “proper time, resources and staffing.”
After the shooting in New Mexico, the filming of “Rust” resumed but in Montana, under an agreement with Hutchins’ husband, Matthew Hutchins, which made him an executive producer. A wrongful death lawsuit in civil court by Matthew Hutchins and the Hutchins' son was settled under undisclosed terms.
Defense attorneys say Baldwin last year was offered a deal to plead to a “minor offense” before a grand jury was convened, but the offer that was “inexplicably retracted” before the deadline to respond.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14