Hannah Gutierrez-Reed found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in fatal Rust shooting

After a two-week-long trial, Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

The Rust armorer was then taken into custody, with sentencing set for next month. Although Gutierrez-Reed was found guilty of the involuntary manslaughter charge, the jury decided she was not guilty of evidence tampering. The involuntary manslaughter charge carries up to 18 months in prison as well as a $5,000 fine.

During the production of Rust, a live round was discharged from a revolver used by Alec Baldwin, which killed Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza. The prosecution claimed that it was Gutierrez-Reed, who they alleged was wildly negligent, who was responsible for six live rounds getting onto the set. “She had six, six live rounds on that movie set, the earliest date that I can track them for you is October 10,” said special prosecutor Kari Morrissey during closing arguments. “Six, and she failed to ferret them out for 12 days. What that means is that she wasn’t shaking any dummy rounds, she wasn’t testing anything.“

Morrissey continued, “If she’s not checking the dummy ammunition during the pendency of the filming to make sure that those rounds that are designed to look like live rounds are in fact dummy rounds, this was a game of Russian roulette every time an actor had a gun with dummies.“

Guiterrez-Reed’s main defense lawyer Jason Bowles said that “there’s reasonable doubt she had anything to do ultimately with Halyna Hutchins’ death,” and that his client is being treated as a “convenient scapegoat.“

Alec Baldwin is also facing charges of involuntary manslaughter, with his trial set to begin in July. Morrissey mentioned the actor in her closing statements: “Alec Baldwin’s conduct and his lack of gun safety … on that day is something that he’s going to have to answer for. Not with you and not today,” she said. “That will be with another jury, on another day.” Baldwin has pled not guilty to the charges and has maintained that he did not pull the trigger.

Do you agree with the verdict? Should Hannah Gutierrez-Reed have been found guilty for her part in the Rust shooting?