Where is Hannah Gutierrez-Reed? 'Rust' armorer lies low and quits social media
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the daughter of famous Hollywood armorer and stunt man Thell Reed, was the armorer on the set of Alec Baldwin’s film 'Rust' when the actor was reportedly handed a prop gun with real bullets which went off and killed the cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza on Thursday, October 21. After the incident went viral, drawing negative reactions from all over the world, Gutierrez-Reed deleted herself from all social media platforms.
According to the search warrant affidavit, the armorer had laid out three prop guns on a rolling cart at the set in Bonanza Creek Ranch outside Santa Fe, and the assistant director handed one of them to Baldwin, yelling out that it was a “cold gun”, indicating it was believed to contain no live ammunition. However, the gun was loaded with live rounds, and when Baldwin pulled the trigger, Hutchins was struck and killed. It went through her chest and struck Souza, who was standing behind the cinematographer.
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Where is Hannah Gutierrez-Reed?
According to The Associated Press, the armorer on the set of 'Rust,' was Hannah Gutierrez, who also goes by Hannah Gutierrez-Reed and Hannah Reed. Her LinkedIn profile lists her base as Flagstaff, Arizona. Although she professionally identifies as a videographer, she did bag a recent gig as an armorer at the Yellowstone Film Ranch in Montana, from March to June of this year. Her duties included “loading firearms with appropriately sized blanks” and “ensuring gun safety on set along with instructing actors on how to use their guns.”
The Hollywood Reporter noted in its report that "an attempt Friday to reach Gutierrez wasn’t successful." It is not known for certain where Gutierrez is at the moment. Investigators probing the incident haven't named her as a person of interest.
24 year old Hannah Gutierrez-Reed the set armorer that was hired by Rust Movie Productions and is responsible for all guns on the Alec Baldwin Western Film ‘Rust’ in New Mexico has deleted her TikTok and Twitter and also her Facebook and Instagram accounts. pic.twitter.com/NvCJiTUCMu
— :rainbow: (@MagicZoetrope) October 24, 2021
MEAWW also observed that Gutierrez's Instagram account with the handle "@no_son_of_a_gun" (which is a clever play on an infamous swear phrase) was deleted following the tragic incident. It was not immediately clear as to when the page went out of existence. "Sorry, this page isn't available. The link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed," a message read when one tried to access her Insta account. According to social media reports, Gutierrez seems to have quit social media for good as she has also removed her accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok.
Gutierrez once gave gun to an 11-year-old actress without checking it
Last month, Gutierrez spoke about how she was not sure if she would be able to handle the role of an armorer on a movie set. Speaking to the podcast 'Voices of the West' from Livingston, Montana, on September 11, she admitted, "I just finished up working on ‘The Old Way’ with Nicolas Cage, his very first Western. It was also my first time being head armorer as well... You know, I was really nervous about it at first and I almost didn’t take the job because I wasn’t sure if I was ready. But, doing it, it went really smoothly.” She said she was “hoping” that working as an armorer on the Cage movie would be a “bada** way to start off a really long and cool career.”
Sources also told Daily Beast that filming on the set of her last movie had to be briefly halted after she gave a gun to a child actress without checking it properly. “She was a bit careless with the guns, waving it around every now and again,” a source, who worked alongside Hannah Gutierrez-Reed in 'The Old Way.' In a troubling incident, Gutierrez had allegedly loaded a gun on the ground and then given it to child actress Ryan Kiera Armstrong without properly checking it. Crew members soon stepped in and demanded that shooting be stopped until the firearm is properly checked by Hannah. “She was reloading the gun on the ground, where there were pebbles and stuff. We didn’t see her check it, we didn’t know if something got in the barrel or not,” one source said.