Law&Crime Sidebar - 8 Shocking Moments in Alec Baldwin Armorer’s Trial for ‘Rust’ Movie Shooting

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

Hannah Gutierrez-Reed is facing charges of involuntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence after famed actor Alec Baldwin fired a live round on the set of the movie “Rust" in New Mexico. Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed. The armorer was in charge of all weapons and ammunition on set. Witnesses so far have testified about everything from Gutierrez-Reed’s reaction following the shooting and another accidental discharge that happened earlier in filming. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber analyzes the top eight moments in the trial so far..PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you've been injured at work you can go to Pondlehocky.com/LCSidebar or pick up the phone and call them @ 833-669-4043HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. And the decisions she made that day ultimately contributed to Ms. Hutchins' death. They're trying to blame it all on Hannah. The 24-year-old, because why because she's an easy target. The woman in charge of weapons and ammo on the movie set where a cinematographer was shot and killed is learning

if she will face legal consequences. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed is on trial in New Mexico as actor Alec Baldwin faces similar criminal charges in a separate upcoming trial. We're bringing you the latest from court so far. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Okay, we have arrived.

for the start of a very high-profile case. It is the trial centered around the shooting on the set of the upcoming film Rust starring Alec Baldwin. But no, this trial is not about the actor. Well, in a way, it is about the actor, but he is not the one who is on trial. He's not the defendant here.

No, the person on trial right now is Hannah Gutierrez Reed. This is the film's armor. Why? Let's go back to October 21st, 2021. New Mexico, this is where they were filming the Rust movie, this kind of Western film, and Alec Baldwin was handling an 1880s-era prop gun for this rehearsal. And he allegedly had been given the gun by Dave Halls, the assistant

director, who had gotten the gun from Gutierrez Reed. That's what the prosecution asserts. And during this rehearsal, the gun went off. And instead of it being loaded with blanks or something similar like dummy rounds, it was loaded with live ammunition. And that shot hit cinematographer Helena Hutchins killing her. The director, Joel Sousa, was also injured by that bullet, but he survived. And after a long investigation, involuntary

manslaughter charges were filed against Baldwin and Reed in January of 2023. Baldwin's charges were later dismissed in April of that year, but then refiled in January of 2024. Prosecutors said they got a new analysis of the weapon from

experts in ballistics and forensic testing, proving that the only way the gun could have gone off as if the trigger was pulled. Baldwin had previously claimed that he did not pull that trigger. We now know Baldwin will go to trial in July, where the trial set to last around eight days. We're going to cover it here on sidebar and long crime. But back to Gutierrez-Reed,

so she is charged with involuntary manslaughter, that she negligently used the weapon, that she acted without due caution or circumspection, but she is also charged with evidence tampering for allegedly trying to get another crew member to hide a bag of cocaine. This is police were investigating the shooting. Prosecutors claimed that she was doing drugs during the filming. Even smoking marijuana the night before.

Again, the theme is that she ran this sloppy, unorganized, unprofessional operation that her actions caused a live round to be in that gun and for it to be ultimately fired. Well, Gutierrez-Reed's trial got underway last week. And opening statements kind of gave us a good idea of the evidence that the state has against her. So here is part of the prosecution's opening state. What we want to do is give you the information that you need to answer two key questions. The first being, what are the events that happened on the set of rust that led to the death of Helena Hutchins?

And the second question is, how did live ammunition end up on the set of the movie? As to both questions, we believe that it was the negligent acts and failures of the defendant, Ms. Gutierrez, that resulted in both the acts that contributed to Ms. Hutchins' death and to the live rounds being brought on to the set. Our witnesses are going to testify that when the defendant pulled the gun out of the safe after lunch, what she should have done was open the gun and independently. herself checked each and every round. Then when she took it to the church and handed it to Mr. Halls, she should have done a second complete ammo check with Mr. Halls because this double redundancy is what helps prevent the kind of incidents that occurred to Ms. Hutchins from happening. This means she should have opened the gun, removed each cartridge, confirmed that they were dummy rounds by individually shaking them, rattling them, or seeing the board whole.

And because these dummy rounds are so similar to live rounds, her decision to just crack it open and spin the cylinder a little bit to look at the head stamps wasn't enough. She needed to do a much more complete check. So having failed to do that check herself, she then handed the firearm to Mr. Halls anyway. She exited the church, and then Mr. Halls handed the firearm to Mr. Baldwin. As the blocking session was underway, Mr. Hutchins and, excuse me, Ms. Hutchins and several of her crewmates were busily working, looking through, and adjusting cameras, and Mr. Baldwin was sitting on that church pew, practicing how he would hold the gun for the upcoming filming session. As Mr. Baldwin was manipulating the firearm, he caused it to discharge, and that unfortunately sent a projectile. flying directly at Ms. Hutchins. The projectile shot completely through Ms. Hutchins

and then struck the film's director, Joel Sousa, in the shoulder. We will show you, ladies and gentlemen, but that by failing to make those vital safety checks, the defendant acted negligently and without due caution and that the decisions she made that day ultimately contributed to Ms. Hutchins' death. And to highlight that point further, prosecutor said that Gutierrez-Reed knew about the safety issues on set, that she knew that there were problems.

She shouldn't have just handed the gun to Dave Halls without double-checking, especially since dummy rounds and live rounds looked so incredibly similar, and it was her discretion to hand the gun over to Dave Halls. and she could have said no, but she didn't. Okay, so that is part of what the prosecution had to say during opening statements, but what about the defense for Gutierrez-Reed? How will her team keep the blame off of their client? Let's take a listen.

Ladies and gentlemen, the jury, we are privileged our team to represent Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. He's sitting over here, and we're here because of a tragedy. There's no doubt. There was a tragic occurrence on that movie set. But let me tell you something, you already know, just because there was a tragedy does not mean that a crime was committed. It does not mean that Hannah Gutierrez-Reed caused the crimes they have charged her with. And we are going to, through the course of this case, show you that production and the state

have both very early on sought to make Hannah Gutierrez-Reed a scapegoat. That's what this is about. Let me talk about the live rounds. Now, the government has a, the state has a relatively new theory, which is based totally on pictures, and you saw some of those pictures, and it's also based on the idea that live rounds have a silver primer on this side. So that's going to be the core of their argument and their theory. And you saw in the picture, one of them had a silver primer, and the primer is just that circle

in the middle of the round on the back where the hammer hits and that's what caused the round of fire. Now, what you didn't hear in State's opening was that there's going to be numerous dummy rounds that also have silver primers that were on this set. There was a FBI report you're going to see that a box removed from the prop truck had 16 silver primer dummies

and one silver primer suspected live round. So this was a box found in the prop truck. So the theory that all the silver primer rounds are live is not correct. This is highly dangerous. And how Ms. Gutierrez-Reed was faced with the situation on this set of dealing with a mixed match of dummies, cheap dummies, he's going to call garbage, that were just thrown together that she had to deal with.

Again, while OSHA is going to tell you, She's being rushed. She's having to perform two jobs. She's asking for more resources and help from her manager, and she's not getting it. And what they've tried to do, and what you're seeing in this courtroom today, is trying to blame it all on Hannah. The 24-year-old, because why? Because she's an easy target.

She's the least powerful person on that set. So what do we do? And you're going to see the evidence? They target her. Okay. So the prosecution says it was Gutierrez-Reed's job to check. all of this, and she didn't. But the defense is saying she was young, she was overwhelmed with two onset jobs, and she was dealing with way more live rounds of ammunition than I think

we initially realized. And it was the production that created an unsafe environment. So in other words, I think a way to look at this is to say, it's not that she didn't do her job, but it was impossible for her to do her job. Plus, she didn't actually shoot the gun. Alec Baldwin did. And in law, we sometimes say that this is what's called an intervening cause to what occurred. It was Baldwin's decision to allegedly pull the trigger that caused the death of Palena, not what Gutierrez-Reed did. So let's keep that in mind. That's one of the arguments that I think the defense will use. But now we heard from some of the first witnesses in this case, the first witnesses that were called by the prosecution. And these were members of the

Santa Fe County Sheriff's Department in 2021 who responded to the movie set after the shooting. The prosecution also played footage from Depi's body cameras as the witnesses testified, and the defendant can be heard crying in one of the videos. Okay, what I'm going to have you do is sitting here, okay? You're not arrested. The door's going to stay open. Sincure the armor, they're going to want to talk to you more than anybody, okay? Mr. Benevita's, why did you ask Ms. Gutierrez to get into your truck?

Um, with the scene being so active, um, and her being the armor, I couldn't have her walk off and lose her. Um, so I see, I, I put her in my unit. As I, as you heard, I, she was not under arrest. They just needed to talk to her. Oh my God. Just relax. Okay. I'm just trying to, there's a whole lot of people here sometimes to secure everybody. You can stay right here with us. You can leave the door open, you don't have to do anything, okay? I believe I was telling Corporal Doreta to put the yellow tape to the med truck, I think. Or I was asking for a med unit to come and check on Hannah. Understood. And why would you ask for a medical unit to come check on Hannah?

The way she was pretty much hyperventilating and I didn't want her to pass out and then we have a bigger problem. So this video is important, captures some of the immediate reactions of the defendant, immediately thought that she was arrested, right? Why did she say that? Did she know that she messed up? Did she show a motion as to what happened? Because she realized, oops, I'm in trouble for what I did, something I'm sure the jury will be thinking about. Then a crime scene technician testified next,

recounting where rounds of ammunition were found. These two rounds were sent to the FBI because they were suspected live rounds, which the FBI confirmed. So these two rounds here, this picture was taken before they were sent to the FBI. Correct. And these turned out to be live rounds? Yes. Meaning real bullets. Yes.

And what's this one down here? This is a dummy 45 round with a hole drill in the side. And these were just loose on the prop cart? Yes. Can you tell me what we're looking at here? This is a close-up of one of the... the gun belts where was this gun belt collected from i believe this gun belt was on top of the cart the prop card yes were any of these rounds sent to the FBI yes which one the one with the

silver primer did that turn out to be a live round yes in total six live rounds were found on the the rust set, along with about 250 dummy rounds and nearly 1,000 blanks. Some of the rounds were in boxes while others were just loose on a cart or in a fanny pack. And I think a way to frame this for the prosecution is that this was the defendant's job to keep all of this secure. It was her job to keep a safe set. Even if we accept that the live rounds shouldn't have been there, she is the last line of defense to make sure accidental shootings don't happen.

And that's why you do the checks of the guns. Now, the defense, in their opening statement, they pointed the finger at the prop house, PDQ, as having responsibility for the rounds. But when the prosecution asked the crime scene technician about the live ammunition provided by PDQ or allegedly provided by PDQ, the witness said, they look different.

This live ammunition that was recovered from PDQ props, is it visibly different than the live? five rounds that were found on the movie set? Yes. And how is it visibly different? So there were different types of live ammunition collected from PDQ, including different stamps on that ammunition. But on cross-examination, the defense questioned the tech about issues at the crime scene.

And you're going to hear about a Sarah Zachary. She was the prop master. The defense said that she tampered with evidence. namely removing rounds from the set after the shooting, seemingly suggesting that she was hovering up what happened. Why is the chain of custody so important? The chain of custody is essentially the tracking of where the item originated from to who has possession of it now and everything in between. Okay. And if there is a break in the chain of custody, that's a problem for you in terms of verifying that evidence for it. Yes.

Now, if before you got there, Miss Zachary had thrown rounds away and she had taken items from the prop cart to the prop truck, that could cause problems with the chain of custody, correct? Well, if someone were to remove evidence from a scene, it wouldn't just cause problems for chain of custody. It would cause problems because we no longer have that evidence. Correct. In fact, if you don't have evidence, it's lost. That's a serious problem in a case like this. correct? Yes. And this is a death investigation. So you would ideally want all of the evidence that might be relevant for a jury to see later, correct? Yes. Now, are you aware here that

Ms. Zachary actually threw those rounds away? At beyond my scope of knowledge. Okay. And again, we're talking about those getting thrown away. But now let's talk about if items were taken from that prop cart to the prop truck before you got there would you agree that breaks the chain of custody it disturbs the scene would you agree with that yes so in other words when you get there and you take pictures of the prop cart you wouldn't know if that's how it looked at the time of the shooting would you no and um we saw a picture of those boxes that went into deputy benavita's truck do you recall that yes now um later on i know you put them back in the cart to take pictures, correct? Yes. So, and I know you weren't intending to do something, but when you placed

them back, you have no idea if that was where they were before. That was not the reasoning behind placing them into the scene. I understand, and I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to say your reasoning in a certain way. I'm just saying that you did not know when you placed them back for a picture, that that's exactly where they were before. Correct. Again, the defense kind of bringing this allegation against Sarah Zachary about what her motivations were, what she did, but the defense just bringing up enough chain of custody issues to suggest that the scene has been disrupted. How reliable is the prosecution's case? How reliable is the prosecution's story? How can we be so sure that the PDQ rounds weren't the live rounds on set?

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The judge sided with the prosecution, allowing some of Gutierrez-Reed's messages to be included at trial. and a cell phone records analyst read a few of the texts that referenced smoking marijuana. And is that a text to or from Ms. Gutier's his phone? It is from her phone. And it is to the 505 number? Correct. And if you can, and what's the date?

The date is October 20th, 2021 at 748 and 46 seconds p.m. local time. Okay. And can you read that for us? It says, headed down to get high, out back, colon B. Another important witness was Catherine Walters, the Russ production manager. Defense attorneys for Gutierrez-Reed have argued that the defendant had requested more training for management and was denied. Is that true? Are you familiar with Ms. Gutierrez?

Hi. Your role on set, if a crew member needs something, you know, you know, Would you maybe be the person they would go to? Yes, ma'am. So I want to ask you, did Ms. Gutierrez ever specifically request from you additional training time with Mr. Baldwin? Not to me. Did Ms. Gutierrez request generally additional training days as an armor from you? No, not for me.

Kind of goes against the defense's narrative that Gutierrez read was spread thin. and didn't have the ability to try to ensure more safety protocols seem she could have, but she did not. At least that's what we're getting away from the sweat. Now, Walters also testified that a few days after the shooting, the defendant asked her to meet at the prop truck so she could grab some personal items. Can you just describe to us the few things that you did see her take out of the prop truck?

I remember a couple of gun belts, and I think I remember a couple of cardboard boxes, but nothing other than that. Okay. Okay. And Ms. Gutierrez took these items from the prop truck prior to the police executing a search warrant on that truck. Is that correct? Yes. Yeah. Now, a jury could interpret that as her hampering with the scene. But the defense said, hang on. She wasn't the only person to get things from the set. In addition to Ms. Gutierrez-Ree, you allowed other people to get their personal effects as well, didn't you?

From the set? Yes. yes so after the incident the law enforcement cleared the scene and everybody thought it was clear correct correct and so you allowed multiple people to get their personal effects is that correct yes okay so it wasn't just miss cuterus read correct okay so now maybe not as nefarious as before okay if they thought there was scene was cleared maybe they're not doing anything wrong here Plus, she admitted that Seth Kenney, the owner of PDQ, was there when the prop truck was being searched by the sheriff's office. Okay, but then on Monday, day three of trial, a very important witness testified.

An FBI firearms expert, Bryce Ziegler, testified about the type of revolver that ultimately became the murder weapon and how it works. And Ziegler also explained how accidental discharges can happen. So how is this gun designed in terms of safety with regard to possible accidental discharges when the hammer is in the fully rested position? Right, so when the hammer is fully forward, as I mentioned earlier, the firing pin actually protrudes inside the frame. So if you have the cylinder fully loaded and the hammer is at rest on a chamber that has a live cartridge in it, that firing pin is actually sitting on the primer of that cartridge.

So if I were either to strike the hammer or if I were to drop it and it landed on the hammer, it's going to fire that cartridge. So if you hit the hammer with enough force, it will detonate that primer in that position. And that's part of the design of this firearm, that's just how these are made. And if you were to look at the owner's manual, which this is one thing I did as part of my exam, you would actually see warnings not to carry this firearm with a hammer at rest on a loaded chamber. So a lot of times it's actually advised that you load one less cartridge in the cylinder, so you have one empty chamber, and that's how it's carried with the hammer forward on that

chamber. So these are recommendations in the owner's manual. So this isn't some phenomenon. This is something that's known about the design of these firearms. So Ziegler seems to be suggested. this is what I took away from it, that the gun had certain features and components that prevented the hammer from falling if the shooter's thumb slipped off. But if the gun had been dropped, the gun could go off because the firing pin is sitting on the primer of the bullet. Now, the FBI analyst also seems to testify that someone had to actually pull the trigger for the gun to go off.

Did you form an opinion about whether the handler would have to? pull the trigger of the gun to make the gun fire? My opinion is that the only reason this occurred is because of the breakage. So in order to move the trigger away from the hammer that's typically accomplished by pulling the trigger. So in this case, the only way that was possible is because the trigger actually fractured. Okay. So in order for you, just so that we're clear, in order for you to make the gun fire without pulling the trigger, without pulling the trigger, when it was in the full cock position, you had to break it.

That's what I had to do in my lab. I can't account for all the other possibilities that may have existed in some hypothetical scenario, but this is the result as I tested it in my laboratory. It would not fire without pulling the trigger in the full cock setting without being broken. And it is that kind of analysis why it seems to me Alec Baldwin was charged again, have to pull that trigger. And remember, Alec Baldwin told ABC he cocked the gun, but he didn't pull the trigger. In the lead up to trial, there was a lot of talk about the gun and whether tests by the FBI had destroyed it.

So Gutierrez-Reed's defense team asked the analyst about that. Now, so you got permission to possibly destroy this revolver permanently. They gave that to you. I received permission to conduct the test. And you made it aware to. them that this could destroy the weapon? Yes. When you did destroy that, you broke several internal parts? Yes. And then we saw that on the exhibit. You took those apart to show what would have happened, correct? Correct. Now, you also said that you did not see any modifications

as to that firearm, correct? At what point? You testified that in your functionality examination you also determine whether it had been modified or not you right so that's generally in regards to things like has the barrel been cut has the stock been cut has it's been modified to fire fully automatic so when I talk about modifications that's what I'm referring to and I did not see any of those things okay and as far as internal modifications you did did you look at that no because I can't disassemble the firearm because I have to test it in the condition it's received

Okay, but from your viewing it and your observation, you didn't notice anything that would tell you was modified. Right, nothing jumped out immediately. Okay. Now, one of the final witnesses on Monday was the Dolly Grip. He was on the set for a very important incident, an alleged accidental discharge that happened not long before on the same set. Can you describe the first accidental discharge that you recall happening? I think the first one was the, I don't know if the prop master was loading or unloading. And let me stop you, what's the prop master's name?

Sarah, I think her name was Sarah Zachary. Okay. It was her name. She was, we were, we were outside of the character Rust's cabin, and I don't know if she was loading or unloading a handgun, but unannounced to any of the crew that firearm discharged. So we considered that a negligent discharge. And how did you know it discharged? I was within feet of it, and she seemed pretty spooked when I turned her out. and it appeared as though she had shot that firearm at her foot.

Can you tell us, in your experience, in your opinion, what you think that gun was loaded with? I, it made a bang, but it didn't, you know, I don't know if there was a bullet or not, because I don't know if it hit her foot, but it certainly made a loud noise that spooked us and the animals we had on set. I think we had a couple of horses on set. And again, it was unannounced, so it was a surprise to everybody that was around. Were you preparing to film a scene or a take at that time? Yes. Was it announced by anyone whether the guns were going to be loaded with dummies or blanks?

I don't think at that moment it had been, no. Okay. So when that accidental discharge happened, I mean, what did it say? sound like? A gun going off? Okay. And you indicated that this accidental discharge occurred because that gun was being loaded or unloaded by the prop master Sarah Zachary.

Is that right? That's correct. In your previous experiences on other movie sets with armorers, did you ever see the prop master Loading and unloading the guns? I've never seen that, no. Have you ever experienced an accidental discharge on another movie? I don't know that I have. Again, these are significant problems happening on this set.

And the prosecution would argue that this was Gutierrez-Reed's job to protect against this. There shouldn't be live rounds and accidental discharge is happening, but especially if there are, if they are happening, all the more reason she should have taken greater care to test the gun before handing it over for it to be used by Alec Baldwin in the rehearsal. That's the prosecution's argument. In Gutierrez-Reed, she faces up to three years in prison if she's convicted of involuntary manslaughter and evidence tamper.

We will continue to follow this trial for you here on Cybar. It's expected to last around two weeks. Again, it has some really interesting legal points, but at the end of the day, the most important point, this is a tragedy that should not have happened. That is all we have for you here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time.