‘Amateur’, ‘negligent’: Alec Baldwin’s Rust gunsmith sentenced to 18 months in prison

It is a tragedy that reveals many failures in Hollywood. In October 2021, cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was I’m shooting on the set of Rust, a western starring and produced by star Alec Baldwin. During the first trial involving gunsmith Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the courts sentenced her to 18 months in prison. This sentence corresponds to the maximum requested by the prosecution.

She was the one who did it loaded with a live projectile the gun that Alec Baldwin fired, killing the cinematographer and wounding the director Joel Souza. In the face of American justice, the gunsmith would have said “The jury found that I was partly responsible for this terrible tragedy, but that doesn’t make me a monster.”. While expressing her support for the victim’s family, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed reportedly refrained from expressing the slightest “responsibility” or at least “remorse” during the trial, according to prosecutor Kari Morrissey.

A production that tries to save money, to the detriment of safety?

How could such a situation happen? According to the prosecution, the gunsmith was inexperienced, amateur, negligent and “he always left his weapons unattended”. But on the Gutierrez-Reed defense side we hear a completely different story. The gunsmith’s lawyers claimed that the gunsmith acted as a gunsmith “scapegoat” has a production that has relegated the safety of its team to secondary importance for financial reasons. His lawyer, for example, explained that Gutierrez-Reed was not dealing with a but two positionsand that’s his jobprops assistant had led to negligence for that gunsmith.

Alec Baldwin: Malicious behavior and version changes

Adding to the arguments between the production and the gunsmith is the role played by Alec Baldwin, the actor behind the shooting. The latter is still under investigation for manslaughter and will be tried in another trial next July. Although the actor’s lawyers try to obtain its annulment, the prosecution insists on the need for his maintenance, underlining in particular that Baldwin “he shouted regularly” about film crews. He wanted to finish filming as quickly as possible and this attitude would get him to make it happen “a pressure that has regularly compromised safety” During shooting.

Finally, the prosecution alleged that the actor, 66, had done so “he blatantly lied about his behavior”, first assuring that he had pulled the trigger then explaining that the weapon would have exploded on its own. A version of events contradicted by an FBI report, which ensures that the gun could not have been fired without pulling the trigger.

Baldwin risk up to 18 months in prison.

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