‘Rust’ armourer pleads not guilty as manslaughter trial is set for December
A judge in New Mexico has set the manslaughter trial surrounding the Rust shooting for the date of December 6th. Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the film’s armourer, is facing charges of involuntary manslaughter.
Reed is also being charged with tampering with evidence surrounding the accidental shooting and killing of Rust’s cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Reed will face up to three years in prison if she is convicted.
On Wednesday, August 9th, Reed handed in a written not-guilty plea, which gave away her rights to a formal arraignment. She had already waived her rights to a preliminary hearing in the previous months.
Reed had been working as the armourer on the Western film Rust, starring Alec Baldwin. It was she that loaded the gun that Baldwin was in possession of when it suddenly fired, killing the cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
Baldwin had also wounded the film’s director, Joel Souza. Legal bodies have alleged that Reed did not properly check that all of the rounds in the gun were dummies that looked like live rounds but did not contain anything that would hurt anyone.
The court prosecutors also said that Reed was hungover around the time of the incident and is alleged to have handed a bag of cocaine immediately after being questioned about the shooting. Reed’s defence claim that her judgment was not impaired.
The trial will run from December 6th to December 15th, with the jury selection set to take place on December 5th.
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