[imagesource: Facebook / Serge Svetnoy]

You’re looking at the last known photograph of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins before she was killed on the set of Rust.

Hutchins was shot by Alec Baldwin, who believed he was holding a “cold gun” (indicating that the weapon did not have live rounds) which he had been handed by assistant director Dave Halls.

Clearly, there were a number of security and safety failures in the lead-up to the fatal shooting, with the same bullet that killed Hutchins also striking director Joel Souza.

The armourer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who is responsible for handling all the on-set weapons, has come under fire.

Now, through her lawyers, Gutierrez-Reed is pushing the idea that there may have been some sabotage at play.

NewsAU reports:

[Laywer Jason Bowles] revealed Gutierrez-Reid claims she loaded the gun with a box of bullet rounds labelled “dummy” before the shooting.

“She loaded rounds from that box into the handgun only to later find out … she had no idea, she inspected the rounds.”

“I believe that somebody who would do that would want to sabotage the set, want to prove a point, want to say that they’re disgruntled, they’re unhappy.

“And we know that people had already walked off the set the day before.”

Probed if crew members could be potential suspects in the case, Bowles said: “I think you can’t rule anybody out at this point.”

The allegations by Bowles and fellow lawyer Robert Gorence were made during an appearance on the TODAY Show.

Bowled also spoke about Gutierrez-Reed’s emotional state after the shooting:

“She’s heartbroken and she’s just devastated by what’s happened.” -Jason Bowles, attorney for “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed pic.twitter.com/tp2RaAxKdi

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) November 3, 2021

During the interview, the legal team pointed at a two-hour gap where they believe sabotage may have occurred:

“We know there was a live round in a box of dummy rounds that shouldn’t have been there. We have people who had left the set, who had walked out because they were disgruntled. We have a time frame between 11 (a.m.) and 1 (p.m.), approximately, that day, in which the firearms at times were unattended, so there was opportunity to tamper with this scene.”

…Bowles emphasised Gutierrez-Reid had gone to lunch, then returned to fulfil another duty as a key props assistant right after she provided the gun to ‘Rust’ Assistant Director David Halls who “took custody of the weapon”.

Here’s that interview in full:

However, during an interview with The New York Times later that day, the lawyers walked back that two-hour claim:

Mr. Bowles later said they had been mistaken, and after consulting Ms. Gutierrez-Reed again, he said they had been locked up in a safe during lunch and had only been left unattended for a total of five to 10 minutes.

Mr. Bowles said Ms. Gutierrez-Reed asked her colleagues to watch the cart when she wasn’t there but remembered seeing it left unattended at various points that day…

Mr. Bowles said that after lunch, the film’s first assistant director, Dave Halls, asked for the firearm; Ms. Gutierrez-Reed then spun the gun’s cylinder and showed him all six rounds inside — which she believed to all be dummies. Mr. Halls then entered the set, a wooden church, while Ms. Gutierrez-Reed remained outside because there were not supposed to be any gun discharges happening inside that she needed to be present for, the lawyer said.

At that point, her lawyers say she went off to fulfil other prop duties and the fatal shooting occurred.

Her lawyers also dispute claims that there was any trouble during her first job as head armourer, a western called The Old Way starring Nicolas Cage.

It’s been reported that filming on the set of The Old Way was briefly stopped after Gutierrez-Reed allegedly gave a gun to an 11-year-old actress without checking it properly.

A source said she “was a bit careless with the guns, waving it around every now and again”.

Detectives from the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office, which is handling the investigation, have called it among the most challenging in Santa Fe County in recent memory.

It may be some time before we get to the bottom of exactly what happened that day.

[sources:newsau&nytimes]