Armorer who loaded gun in Alec Baldwin shooting faces trial: What to know

The armorer who loaded the gun that Alec Baldwin was rehearsing with on a film set in 2021 when it fired a live round and killed the movie’s cinematographer is heading to trial in New Mexico this week on a charge of involuntary manslaughter.

The trial of the armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, will mark the first time a trial jury will weigh in on the Oct. 21, 2021, shooting on the set of the film “Rust,” which claimed the life of its cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins. A grand jury indicted Baldwin last month on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the shooting; he has pleaded not guilty and will be tried separately later.

The trial, which will begin with jury selection Wednesday at the 1st Judicial District Courthouse in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is expected to last about two weeks.

Gutierrez-Reed, 26, has been accused of criminal negligence in her handling of guns on the set of the Western. Prosecutors say she failed to properly check that the rounds she loaded into the .45-caliber revolver were all dummy rounds, which are inert cartridges used to resemble live rounds on camera but which cannot be fired.

“Her primary function as an armorer on the ‘Rust’ movie set was to ensure gun safety,” the lead prosecutor on the case, Kari T. Morrissey, wrote in a court filing. “Her reckless failure resulted in the senseless death of another human being.”

Gutierrez-Reed has pleaded not guilty, and her lawyers have argued that she has been made the “scapegoat” of a tragic accident. They blamed someone else for the appearance of live rounds on set and charged that the production cut corners on safety in an effort to reduce costs, including by overburdening Gutierrez-Reed with two jobs that prevented her from being able to focus fully on her weapons and ammunition duties.

What has Gutierrez-Reed been accused of?

The prosecutors, Morrissey and Jason J. Lewis, have asserted in court papers that out of all the people involved in the fatal shooting on the “Rust” set, Gutierrez-Reed is the “most culpable defendant,” accusing her not only of negligent behavior on the day of the tragedy but in the days leading up to it as well.

“Ms. Gutierrez would frequently leave guns and ammunition unattended on her prop cart or elsewhere,” Morrissey wrote in a filing this month, “or leave actors unattended in possession of real firearms and prop guns, creating safety concerns for crew members.”

Prosecutors have accused Gutierrez-Reed of violating standard film safety protocols by failing to demonstrate to cast and crew members that the rounds she was loading into the revolver were inert, which is often done by shaking each round to hear a BB rattling inside, indicating that it is a dummy round.

How has Gutierrez-Reed defended herself?

Her lead lawyer, Jason Bowles, has argued since 2021 that she has been unfairly maligned, underscoring that because of COVID-19 restrictions she was sometimes kept outside interior sets, including when the gun fired in a small church. Bowles has said that Gutierrez-Reed asked to be called back onto set when guns were in use, but that she wasn’t.

“Hannah did everything in her power to ensure a safe set,” Bowles said in a statement in November 2021, saying that she always inspected the rounds and that the day of the shooting she had spun the cylinder of the revolver and showed the rounds to the first assistant director, Dave Halls. “No one could have anticipated or thought that someone would introduce live rounds into this set.”

Gutierrez-Reed told investigators that she checked each of the six cartridges in the gun but that “I wish I would have checked it more.”

Bowles has called the set “chaotic,” and has asserted that his client had pushed for more firearms training for actors.

Will the jury hear allegations of drug use?

A flashpoint during the months leading up to the trial has been the prosecution’s contention that Gutierrez-Reed used cocaine while in New Mexico during the “Rust” production and was in possession of the drug on the day of the shooting, passing it off to a crew member following her interview with the police that day.

Last year, prosecutors added a charge of evidence tampering related to the crew member’s testimony, which the defense has argued was designed to “smear” Gutierrez-Reed’s character.

The defense sought to exclude the evidence tampering charge from the trial and argued that any mention of alleged drug use or possession, including marijuana, should be barred. Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer denied the defense’s motion but limited how much evidence the prosecution could present concerning the allegations of drug use.

How did live ammunition wind up on the set?

Live ammunition is almost never allowed on film sets, so the discovery of five live rounds on the “Rust” set, in addition to the one that killed Hutchins, has been a focus of investigators.

The trial could shed light on how the live rounds got there.

Without offering specifics, prosecutors said in a court filing that they had developed “significant evidence” that Gutierrez-Reed brought a box containing a mix of dummy rounds and live ammunition onto the set. They have also said they plan to present evidence that there were live rounds present on the set for several days before the tragedy, including in a box of supposed dummy rounds and in the bandoleer that was part of Baldwin’s costume.

The defense said in a court filing last month that it believed that evidence at trial would show that the live rounds ended up on set not through their client but through the movie’s weapon supplier, Seth Kenney; he has denied responsibility.

Who is likely to testify?

The prosecution has included several “Rust” crew members on its list of potential witnesses, including Joel Souza, the movie’s director, who was also shot and wounded in the incident; Halls, the first assistant director, who avoided prison time by taking a plea deal in the case; Mamie Mitchell and Serge Svetnoy, crew members who were in the room at the time of the shooting; and Sarah Zachry, the movie’s prop master, who entered into a cooperation agreement with the prosecution. They will also likely call the original investigators on the case from the sheriff’s office and Kenney, the weapons supplier.

The defense has also listed, among others, Gabrielle Pickle, the film’s line producer, who communicated with Gutierrez-Reed about weapons training; Nicole Montoya, who worked with her on props; and Thell Reed, a well-known Hollywood armorer whom Gutierrez-Reed has called her father and mentor.

The prosecution has recently taken issue with Gutierrez-Reed using Reed’s last name in court, pointing out in a filing that he is her stepfather and that she started using his last name about three years ago when she was seeking to “gain recognition” in the film industry. Bowles said the prosecution had no right to dictate what the defendant calls herself, and that she considered Reed a father because he had raised her since she was young.

It is unclear whether Gutierrez-Reed will take the stand herself.

Will Alec Baldwin take the stand?

Baldwin is not expected to take the stand. He is facing his own charge of involuntary manslaughter — to which he has pleaded not guilty — and has the right not to answer questions that could incriminate him.

Why has it taken more than two years to reach trial?

There have been numerous twists and turns in the prosecution of Gutierrez-Reed and Baldwin. When they were initially charged by a special prosecutor in 2023, their defense teams noted that they were being improperly charged under a law that took effect after the shooting. The original prosecution team conceded the mistake, reducing the potential prison time the defendants faced for that charge to 18 months from 6 1/2 years.

Baldwin’s legal team then challenged the special prosecutor’s ability to serve both as a prosecutor and a state legislator at the same time, leading a new prosecution team to take over. The new special prosecutors, Morrissey and Lewis, dismissed the case against Baldwin pending a further review of the evidence and then brought it back last month. But the case against Gutierrez-Reed has only grown since they took over. In addition to the evidence tampering charge, the prosecutors charged Gutierrez-Reed with unlawful carrying of a firearm in a liquor establishment in a separate case.

Has the movie been finished?

Last year, much of the original cast and crew of “Rust” reconvened in Montana to finish the movie’s filming in what the production described as a tribute to Hutchins, with her husband as an executive producer. No release date has been announced.

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