Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the gunsmith of the western Rust on whose set Halyna Hutchins, the director of photography on the film starring Alec Baldwin, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for manslaughter. The 26-year-old, responsible for the safety and good maintenance of weapons on the set, will have to serve her sentence in a New Mexico prison. Baldwin, who was holding the gun from which the lethal shot was fired, was also indicted on the same charge: the trial against him will begin in July.
“I'm not a monster,” Gutierrez-Reed said, sobbing in the courtroom. Rust had been the first job in the trade inherited from her father, a famous Hollywood gunsmith: "I was young and naive, but I always did my best", she added, asking to be released.
The lethal shooting on the set of Rust, a low-cost western produced by Baldwin who was also the protagonist, dates back to October 2021. The gun provided to the actor accidentally contained a real bullet instead of a fake one that was only supposed to replicate the noise of a shot. Along with Hutchins, fatally wounded, director Joel Souza was also shot.
Today's decision raises the stakes for Baldwin who initially got away but was then indicted a second time for involuntary manslaughter. In recent days, preparing the ground for the July trial, the New Mexico prosecutor's office had released a dossier in which it states that the actor "lied shamelessly" and changed his story several times in the hours and days following the tragedy.
(Unioneonline/D)
