‘Rust’ Armorer’s Attorneys Suggest the Shooting Was Murder

Jason Bowles is the attorney for Hannah Gutierrez Reed, who was the ‘Rust’ set armorer when Halyna Hutchins was killed by a bullet fired by Alec Baldwin which also wounded the director, Joel Souza. During an interview Wednesday on ‘The Today Show’ with host Savannah Guthrie, he suggested shooting death was murder.

According to The Daily Mail, the lawyer described what he thinks might have happened:

“There was a box of dummy rounds, and the box is labeled “dummy.’”

“[Gutierrez Reed] loaded rounds from that box into the handgun, only later to find out – she had no idea – that there was a live round.”

The gun was given to assistant director David Halls who gave the firearm to Baldwin and announced “cold gun.”

“We’re assuming somebody put the live round in that box,” the attorney said. “The person who put the live round in the box of dummy rounds had to have the purpose of sabotaging the set. There is no other reason you would do that: that you would mix that live round in with the dummy rounds.”

The attorney thought a disgruntled worker might have planted it to sabotage the set.

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

“And we know that people had already walked off the set the day before… and the reason they are unhappy is they’re working 12 to 14 hour days, they are not given hotel rooms in and around the area, so they had to drive back and forth an hour to Albuquerque, and they’re unhappy,” he said.

Robert Gorence, another attorney for the armorer, said the gun had been locked away but the prop ammunition was in a prop truck that was “completely unattended at all times, giving someone access and opportunity.”

Gorence also said that after the armorer retrieved the gun and loaded it with the rounds from the box, it was left unattended on a trey for two hours ahead of an afternoon film shoot.

Her lawyers defended her saying, she was expected to be an armorer and a props assistant.

Attorney Bowles said that after lunch, Gutierrez Reed handed the gun she had loaded earlier to Halls and then went about performing her other duties as a props assistant.

As she handed over the Colt, the lawyer said Gutierrez Reed spun the chamber to show Halls the rounds inside.

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