The Rust armourer claims she was not given the opportunity to prepare Alec Baldwin for the scene. Photo / AP
The Rust armourer claims she was not given the opportunity to prepare Alec Baldwin for the scene. Photo / AP
Rust armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed claims she was not given the opportunity to show Alec Baldwin how to use the gun that killed Halyna Hutchins.
Gutierrez-Reed - who along with Baldwin has been charged with involuntary manslaughter over Hutchins’ death in New Mexico at Bonanza Creek in October 2021 - insisted she was “stretched too thin” on set and was not called back in to make sure the gun was safe on set.
Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyer Jason Bowles, told TMZ: “Hannah was not called back into that church. She asked [assistant director] David Halls specifically: ’If Baldwin is going to use that gun, then call me back into that church, so I can instruct him on the usage of the gun, I can reinspect that gun, and I can tell him where to point it, and work with him on it.’
“She was never called back in. So when the [district attorney] talks about the armourer’s responsibility, this and that, she wanted to do her job, but she was prevented from doing her job. That’s the big distinction.”
The manslaughter charges Alec Baldwin faces has revived questions about who's responsible for gun safety on film productions. Photo / Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office via The New York Times
Bowles also claimed that Gutierrez-Reed had asked Halls to use a ”plastic gun” and was told they wanted a “real gun”.
He said: “So Halls took the gun, said he would [call her back in], [and]never called her back in. Halls had the real gun. The idea that he’s saying he didn’t have it, he didn’t hand it to Baldwin, [is] completely false.”
Meanwhile, it has been claimed that Baldwin missed firearm training before filming Rust and was “distracted” during a catch-up session. According to the district attorney’s office’s special investigator Robert Shilling’s probable cause filing - which was obtained by People magazine - he wrote Baldwin “was not present for required firearms training prior to the commencement of filming”.
The documents went on to point out that Gutierrez-Reed stated in her deposition that the actor had “limited training in firearms and how to check his own firearm as to whether it was unloaded or loaded”, and while he did attend a 30-minute training session on set, he appeared ”distracted and [was] talking on his cell phone to his family during the training”.
Alec Baldwin speaks on the phone in the parking lot outside the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office in Santa Fe, New Mexico, after he was questioned about a shooting on the set of the film Rust. Photo / Jim Weber, Santa Fe New Mexican, via AP
Hutchins was killed and director Joel Souza injured when a prop gun held by Baldwin discharged a live round during rehearsal, and the filing documents blasted Baldwin for not behaving like he “assume[d] the gun was loaded”.
They stated: “Baldwin directly pointed a firearm at Hutchins and Souza. Whether guided by [Gutierrez-Reed’s] directions or not, Baldwin knew the first rule of gun safety is never point a gun at someone you don’t intend on shooting.”
In addition, always assume a gun is loaded. Had Baldwin performed the required safety checks with the armourer, Reed, this tragedy would not have occurred.
“In addition, if Baldwin had not pointed the gun at Hutchins and Souza, this tragedy would not have occurred.”
They also noted Baldwin, as one of the producers of the film, “allowed, through acts or omissions, the hiring of inexperienced and unqualified Reed” for the “firearm-intense film” and “failed to demand the minimum safety standards, protocols, and requirements on set”.
