The crew member responsible for guns on the set of actor Alec Baldwin’s Western “Rust” “has no idea” how live rounds got onto the New Mexico movie set, her attorneys said in a statement Friday. Police announced earlier this week Baldwin fired a bullet while rehearsing a scene last week, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
Attorneys Jason Bowles and Robert Gorence said Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the armorer for “Rust,” is “devastated and completely beside herself over the events that have transpired.” The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the shooting, and the district attorney hasn’t ruled out whether criminal charges will be filed.
Gutierrez Reed’s attorneys also addressed reports that crew members had used guns from the movie off set, allegedly firing live ammunition hours before the deadly shooting.
“Hannah has no idea where the live rounds came from,” her attorneys said in the statement. “Hannah and the prop master gained control over the guns and she never witnessed anyone shoot live rounds with these guns and nor would she permit that. They were locked up every night and at lunch and there’s no way a single one of them was unaccounted for or being shot by crew members.”
Gutierrez Reed’s attorneys said the set “became unsafe,” noting it was “extremely difficult” for her to focus on being the armorer because she was hired for two positions.
“She fought for training, days to maintain weapons, and proper time to prepare for gunfire but ultimately was overruled by production and her department,” the attorneys said. “The whole production set became unsafe due to various factors, including lack of safety meetings. This was not the fault of Hannah.”
Assistant director Dave Halls handed the .45-caliber revolver to Baldwin before the actor rehearsed a scene in which he pointed the weapon toward the camera, investigators said in court documents. Halls said in a police interview that he didn’t check all of the rounds in the gun, according to the documents.
Before handing the gun to Baldwin, Halls yelled “cold gun,” indicating it didn’t have any live rounds, according to the documents.
Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza told reporters Wednesday he thought there was there was “some complacency” on the set. Investigators recovered from the set about 500 rounds of ammunition, including blanks, dummy bullets and suspected live rounds, and the FBI was examining all of the recovered bullets, Mendoza said.
On CBSN, CBS News security and law enforcement analyst James Gagliano provided a general description of the three types of bullets that police believe were on the set.
“There’s a live round, which should never be there. That’s something that has powder inside of a casing, and it usually has a lead bullet or projectile at the end. That’s going to go out and harm somebody,” Gagliano said. “No. 2 would be what we call a blank, which means it’s got powder in it, it makes the noise, it gives the flash, but there’s no projectile in it. And No. 3 is a dummy round, and a dummy round is simply mocked up or designed to look like an actual bullet.”
Victoria Albert contributed to this article.
