SANTA FE.- And jury soon consider whether the supervisor of armas Hannah Gutierrez-Reed must be found guilty of the fatal shooting that left a cinematographer dead when the gun she was holding Alec Baldwin During a rehearsal on the set of a Western film he shot himself.
Gutierrez-Reed, a 24-year-old working on her second feature film at the time of the 2021 shooting, pleaded not guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence at the trial in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Lawyers presented closing arguments Wednesday in the trial that will be a preamble to a probable criminal trial against Baldwin, scheduled for July, on a single count of involuntary manslaughter. The actor, who has pleaded not guilty, was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins when the gun went off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
Prosecutors say Gutirrez-Reed unknowingly brought live ammunition to the set of Rust at a ranch outside Santa Fe, where bullets remained for at least 12 days until the fatal shooting.
Prosecutor’s argument
In presenting her closing arguments, prosecutor Kari Morrissey described constant and unending security failures on the set of Rust and Gutierrez-Reed’s astonishing lack of diligence with gun safety.
“We end up exactly where we started: in the pursuit of justice for Halyna Hutchins,” Morrissey told the jury. “Hannah Gutirrez failed to maintain firearms safety, making a fatal accident deliberate and foreseeable.”
Prosecutors contend the gun shop repeatedly skipped or flouted standard gun safety protocols that could have detected live bullets on set. “It was a game of Russian roulette every time an actor had a gun with blanks,” Morrissey said.
Defense attorneys assert that problems on the film set extended far beyond Gutierrez-Reed’s control, including mishandling of weapons by Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer whom crew members were reluctant to confront. .
Prosecutors have come no closer to proving where the live ammunition originated because they have not fully investigated an Albuquerque-based ammunition supplier.
Witnesses
Dozens of witnesses have testified over the course of 10 days at the trial, from FBI experts in firearms and crime scene forensics to a camera operator who described the fatal shot and saw Hutchins turn red and lose sensation. in the legs before dying.
Prosecutors have painstakingly assembled photographic evidence they say traces the arrival and spread of real bullets on set, using statements from witnesses to the shooting, including Souza, to reconstruct the day it occurred on October 21, 2021. .
Prosecutors say six live bullets found on the set of Rust They have mostly identical characteristics, and do not match the real bullets seized from the film’s supplier in Albuquerque. Defense attorneys say the crowded supply office was not searched until a month after the fatal shooting, undermining the importance of the physical evidence there.
A second charge against Gutirrez-Reed of tampering with evidence stems from allegations that she handed a small bag of possible narcotics to another member of the production team after the shooting to avoid detection.
The felony charges against Gutirrez-Reed carry a possible sentence of up to three years in prison.
FUENTE: AP
