It was a Hollywood Prop, a gun we thought was safe. It was a a movie about the Wild West, good guys with guns, bad guys with guns. There was a major star in cowboy clothes shooting the supposedly fake gun that sounds like but no worries. . . .
In a rare verdict, the armorer, who prepared the prop gun for the movie scene which killed a camera woman, was found guilty of manslaughter and could spend 18 months in prison.
Says the Guardian: “Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer for the film Rust, has been found guilty for her role in the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on a New Mexico film set.
Prosecutors argued throughout the trial that Gutierrez-Reed had failed to follow essential safety procedures as was her responsibility and that her work on set was unprofessional and “sloppy” – she allegedly left guns and ammunition unattended and disorganized.
Live rounds of ammunition that Gutierrez-Reed allegedly brought from home were found on set, the prosecution said during the trial. Allegations of drug use
Hutchins was fatally shot by Alec Baldwin while the actor was rehearsing a scene for the neo-western. Baldwin, who also served as a co-producer on the film, was pointing a prop gun at Hutchins during an October 2021 rehearsal when the weapon fired, hitting the 42-year-old and wounding the film’s director, Joel Souza.”
Alec Baldwin will be tried next; Baldwin has also been charged with involuntary manslaughter and is accused of causing Hutchins’s death either by negligence or “total disregard or indifference” for safety. He has pleaded not guilty, and will face his own trial in July. Immediately after the incident, he publicly said that he hadn’t pulled the trigger.