A movie weapons supervisor is facing up to 18 months in prison for the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin on the set of the Western film “Rust,” with her sentencing scheduled for Monday in a New Mexico state court.
Movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was convicted in March by a jury on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and has been held for more than a month at a county jail on the outskirts of Santa Fe.
Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer for “Rust,” was pointing a gun at Hutchins when the revolver went off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
…
Prosecutors blamed Gutierrez-Reed for unwittingly bringing live ammunition onto the set of “Rust” where it was expressly prohibited and for failing to follow basic gun safety protocols. After a two-week trial, the jury deliberated for about three hours in reaching its verdict.
If you are given a loaded gun on a movie set and told it’s safe by the person in charge of gun safety, you can’t be blamed when it goes off.
Maybe he is as fault for cutting costs but that’s not at all what he was being charged with.
Proper gun safety is to always check yourself.l, especially since they had live ammo on the set. These are tools that kill people, you can never be too safe and he should have checked the mag before they shot.
I remember an episode of the Better Call Saul podcast where Vince Gilligan was talking about safety on the set. This was WAY before this incident.
It was something about how they worked with guns and how they use squibs, etc. The way that actors are told about the guns they are using is that the armorer hands them the gun opened, fully emptied. The actor and the person being shot watches as the armorer handles the gun and it is in full view of everyone involved. The gun doesn’t leave the sight of the actor or the armorer as everyone gets in place.
Once everyone is ready, the gun is handed to the actor and then the scene is shot.
The amount of checking and double checking that is done is way over the top. And that’s just for a non-functioning gun For guns with squibs, even more oversight and more checking.
“We’re making a TV show for Christ sake. No one should get hurt, let alone die, because we’re shooting a scene.” (horrible paraphrase of Vince).
The actor shouldn’t “assume” the gun is safe when it’s handed to them. The actor KNOWS it’s safe because they saw it. The armor KNOWS it’s safe because it’s their job. There are no "should"s.
From what I remember, a live round got mixed with the blanks. I don’t think actors are expected to inspect every round let alone know the difference.
As a director on set, maybe Baldwin knew about the live round and even encouraged it, in which case he shares the blame.
But as the person who shot the gun when he was supposed to while filming, I cannot say the same.
And honestly, gun safety isn’t about having the actor, someone who knows nothing about guns, be the last line of defense. If the armorer went through the motions and told him it was safe, how could he spot the difference?
Its a movie, the actor has no gun safety knowledge. Gun safety is paramount but absolutely zero of that responsibility falls on the guy being paid because he looks good and says the lines well.
But tbh I wasn’t there. Maybe he was seriously negligent.
As someone that has been working around weapons for the better part of 20 years, I disagree with your statement of not being blamed.
It’s unfortunate yes, but whoever had that weapon in their hands and pulled the trigger should hold some blame.
If anyone ever hands you a weapon, movie set or not, it should be checked.
I do understand that it doesn’t quite work that way but that’s how it should be. Anyone handling a real weapon, especially during the course of ones job, should be required to go through training.
Nah, one of the very first things you are taught about gun safety is to always assume a gun is loaded until you have checked it for yourself. If someone hands you a gun, you should always check it no matter what. I’ve been in to firearms since I was 8 years old, and I’ve never had a negligent discharge.
They were filming in a state that has a law specifying the exact opposite. “I thought the gun wasn’t loaded” is codified as not being an excuse for a negligent shooting and there isn’t a “it was a movie set” carve out to the law. Hollywood also seems to be extremely split on this with some actors saying you always check and take personal responsibility and others saying to just trust what you are told. If anything hopefully this will lead to actual best practices being adopted industry wide because the current hodgepodge isn’t cutting it.
