CNN
—
Hanna Gutierrez Reed, the armorer for the movie “The Last,” was found guilty last month of manslaughter in connection with a fatal shooting on set in 2021. Director of Photography Halina Hutchinsa New Mexico judge on Monday sentenced him to 18 months in prison, the maximum possible sentence.
“I don’t hear you take responsibility for what you say. You say you’re sorry, but you don’t say you regret what you did.” Mary Marlowe・Judge Sommer said this when announcing his decision.
“Only you turned a safe weapon into a deadly weapon,” the judge said. “But to you, Ms. Hutchins will be alive, her husband will have a partner, and the little boy will have a mother.”
Gutierrez-Reed, 26, showed no visible reaction to the ruling. She was escorted from the courtroom after the verdict was announced.
The verdict came more than two years later. Hutchins, 42, was killed on October 21, 2021, by live ammunition fired from a prop gun held by actor Alec Baldwin. The film’s director was also injured in the shooting.
As the armorer, Gutierrez-Reid was responsible for the safety and storage of firearms on set. she, first person to be tried The case has attracted national attention for more than two years.
At trial, prosecutors argued that Hutchins repeatedly violated safety regulations and acted negligently in the performance of his duties, which led to his death. Her lawyers argued that the 26-year-old was made a scapegoat for safety failures by set managers and other staff. Gutierrez-Reed did not testify at trial.
After hearing from more than 30 witnesses and deliberating for nearly three hours, jurors found Gutierrez-Reed guilty. Found guilty of manslaughter on March 6th. She was also acquitted of another charge of tampering with evidence.
Prosecutors had asked for the maximum prison term for her, citing her “complete and complete failure to accept responsibility for her actions.” In contrast, her defense claims that she has no prior criminal record and that she has a “history of good behavior and positive activity,” and that her He was asking for his release.
She has been in custody since her conviction. She plans to appeal, her attorney Jason Bowles told CNN.
Actor and celebrity Baldwin has also been charged with manslaughter and is scheduled to go to trial in July. He has pleaded not guilty and says he did not pull the trigger of the gun.
A judge is Motion currently under consideration Baldwin’s defense team filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him, citing suspicions of wrongdoing by the government, but prosecutors strongly criticized this motion by filing their own counter-argument.
Ahead of the sentencing, Hutchins’ family and friends in Ukraine spoke Monday about what Hutchins meant to them.
“The day of her death ruined my entire life,” her mother Olga Solovey said in a video with translated subtitles. “It’s heartbreaking to see a child grow up without a mother.”
Joel Souza, the director and screenwriter of “The Last,” who was also shot in the incident, admitted to suffering physical and mental pain in the two-and-a-half years since the shooting.
“One day the world made sense, the next day it didn’t make sense, and it doesn’t make sense now. I don’t know if it will ever again.” Told.
He described Hutchins as a great talent. “She was a touchstone for all who knew her, and all the better for those of us who were lucky enough to share her fleeting time on this earth,” he said.
Gutierrez-Reed, wearing a beige prison uniform, addressed the court and expressed his condolences to those affected by Hutchins’ death.
“First and foremost, my heart hurts for Hutchins’ family, friends, and colleagues. My heart has been hurting since the day this tragedy occurred,” she said. “Halina has been and continues to be a source of inspiration to me. I understand that she was taken far too soon and I pray that you all rest in peace.”
She asked the judge to sentence her to probation.
“Honor, when I took on Rust, I was young and naive, but I took my job as seriously as I could. Even though I didn’t have the appropriate time, resources, or staffing, When things got tough, I did my best to deal with it.”
“The jury found me partially at fault for this terrible tragedy, but that doesn’t make me a monster. It makes me human,” she said.
In a sentencing memo dated April 10, Gutierrez-Reed’s attorneys asked that she be released on probation with conditions set by the judge and that she undergo counseling and rehabilitation. Her note said she felt “incredibly saddened and heartbroken by what happened on the set of ‘The Last’ on that tragic day.”
In an April 12 court filing in response to the defense memo, Morrissey and special counsel Jason Lewis argued that Gutierrez-Reed “continues to deny responsibility and continue to blame others.” , asked for a sentence of 18 months in prison. Prosecutors also cited a jail summons in which Gutierrez-Reed allegedly complained that “this case was having a negative impact on his life” and called jurors derogatory names.
I’m from Ukraine, Hutchins earned a graduate degree He holds a master’s degree in international journalism from Kyiv State University and worked as an investigative journalist in British documentary production in Europe. She then moved to Los Angeles and discovered her passion for cinematography.
she was He is said to have been involved in the production According to IMDB, she won 49 film, television, and video titles during her career. She worked on films such as 2020’s Archenemy, starring Joe Manganiello, and was named a rising star by American Cinematographer in 2019.
Fred Hayes/Getty Images
Halina Hutchins (42), the cinematographer of the movie “The Last,” was killed in a shooting on set in October 2021.
The shooting occurred during a break in the filming of the Western movie “The Last” at Bonanza Creek Ranch outside Santa Fe.
According to a 2023 probable cause statement, Baldwin was practicing a scene, drawing and pointing a revolver under the guidance of Hutchins and director Joel Souza.
Prosecutors said in a probable cause statement that Baldwin pulled out a revolver, pointed it at Hutchins and fired just before 2 p.m., hitting Hutchins in the chest and injuring Souza. Hutchins was pronounced dead shortly after 3:30 p.m.
At trial, prosecutors argued that Gutierrez-Reed repeatedly violated safety regulations and neglected his responsibilities leading up to the shooting. Prosecutors say she failed to safety-inspect the prop weapon and the ammunition it was loaded with, gave the weapon to a staffer who wasn’t supposed to handle it on set, and left the scene when Baldwin ultimately fired the fatal round. It is said that he left.
“This is not a case where Hannah Gutierrez made one mistake and that one mistake was accidentally putting a live round into her gun,” Morrissey said in closing arguments. “This incident is about a continuing and unending series of safety deficiencies that resulted in the death of a human being and the near death of another person.”
Morrissey said that six live rounds were allowed to enter the set because of Gutierrez-Reed’s repeated failures, and that there was no safety inspection that would have caught them.
“She had six or six live rounds on that movie set. The earliest date I can trace is October 10 (2021),” the prosecutor said. “Six, but she couldn’t get them out for 12 days. That means she wasn’t swinging the dummy bullets, she wasn’t testing anything.”
“Dummy” bullets refer to ammunition that does not contain an explosive element but looks like a real bullet when fired.
“If she did not check the dummy bullets to ensure that the bullets designed to look like live bullets were actually dummy bullets during the pendency of filming, this could mean that the actor was holding a dummy gun. It’s like playing a game of Russian roulette every time I play,”’ Morrissey added.
Bowles placed the blame elsewhere. He questioned how live ammunition was brought onto set, claiming the production team created a chaotic and dangerous environment and put Gutierrez-Reid in “a really tough situation to keep up with.” They also said Baldwin did not follow common-sense gun safety rules when handling guns on set and acted unexpectedly when he pointed the gun at Hutchins.
“[Gutierrez-Reid]couldn’t have predicted what Baldwin would do. It wasn’t in the script, and he couldn’t have foreseen it,” he said in closing arguments. “The responsibility for the safety defects lies with management, not with Hannah.”
During the armorer’s trial, film assistant David Halls admitted he was “negligent” in inspecting the gun and did not properly examine all the bullets in the chamber when Gutierrez-Reid handed him the gun. .
“She opened the latch on the revolver and I remember seeing three or four bullets, which I thought were dummy rounds, coming out,” Halls testified. He later added, “I have no recollection of her turning the cylinder all the way.”
Before handing over the gun to Baldwin, Hall kept shouting “cold gun,” which suggested the gun was not loaded, according to court documents. Halls took a plea deal in 2023 for his role in the shooting, pleading no contest to one count of negligent use of a deadly weapon.
He was sentenced to six months of unsupervised probation and fined $500, and was ordered to attend a firearms safety class, complete 24 hours of community service and not use drugs or alcohol.
