Alec Baldwin Blamed For Fatal Shooting By ‘Rust’ Armorer In New Lawsuit

The armorer who worked on the set of the movie Rust has filed a lawsuit in which she places part of the blame for the shooting that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on lead actor Alec Baldwin. 

Armorer Blames Alec Baldwin For ‘Rust’ Shooting

Daily Mail reported that armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed filed a lawsuit earlier this week claiming that Baldwin ignored a request to go to a “cross draw” session about a week before the shooting.

She also placed blame on assistant director David Halls for not following protocol when he allegedly gave Baldwin the gun without having her inspect it first.

The lawsuit is against Seth Kenney and his company PDQ Arm and Prop LLC for allegedly supplying the deadly bullet, and while Baldwin is not a defendant, he’s mentioned in the filing. The suit states that Gutierrez-Reed was trying to juggle two jobs at once on this film set. 

“This gun heavy script required Hannah to perform a significant amount of work each day as both an armorer and key props assistant,” it alleges.

Gutierrez-Reed was later joined on the Rust set by props manager Sarah Zachry, who later accidentally fired a blank round at her foot. Around twenty minutes later, a weapon was accidentally discharged by Baldwin’s stunt double, which led to Gutierrez-Reed confronting her coworkers about these stupid mistakes, according to her lawsuit. This in turn resulted in a heated exchange with Kenney, the bullet supplier. 

“Accidental discharges are accidents,” Kenney wrote in a text message that is mentioned in the lawsuit. “We learn and move on, and don’t forget, she’s your boss. Don’t push it.”

Related: Inside Alec Baldwin’s ‘Nightmare’ Life Since Fatal ‘Rust’ Shooting 

Armorer’s Lawsuit Describes Day Of ‘Rust’ Shooting 

The lawsuit also talks about what happened on October 21, the day of the shooting.

“For Alec Baldwin’s gun, Hannah loaded 4 dummy rounds with holes in them from her pants pocket, a 5th dummy round from the box with a hole in it and attempted to load a 6th dummy round without a hole in it from the box but it would not go into the chamber, and she thought the chamber might need to be cleaned,” the lawsuit said. “Hannah remembers shaking the sixth round to ensure herself that it was a dummy round.”

Baldwin was handed the gun and kept it on him from 10am to 12:30pm, when it was stored while the crew broke for lunch. At 1:30pm, Gutierrez-Reed cleaned Baldwin’s gun and put another round from the dummy box into it after shaking it to make sure that it was not real.

“To the best of Hannah’s knowledge, the gun was now loaded with 6 dummy rounds,” reads the legal filing. “Indeed, Defendants as suppliers of prop ammunition to the Rust set, sold, distributed, and advertised its props as dummy ammunition and not live rounds. Hannah relied upon and trusted that Defendants would only supply dummy prop ammunition, or blanks, and no live rounds were ever to be on set.”

Related: Alec Baldwin Hit With Search Warrant In Fatal ‘Rust’ Shooting

Alec Baldwin Is Given The Gun

After that, Gutierrez-Reed gave the gun to Halls, the assistant director, who said he’d be “sitting in” with the gun. He then handed the gun to Baldwin without calling Gutierrez-Reed to inspect it one last time, the lawsuit alleges. By then, she was performing her duties as a prop assistant.

“Knowing that no gun scene was going on at that time according to Halls, and with awareness of COVID protocols and social distancing, Hannah then walked outside the church to prepare her fanny pack for scenes that afternoon and to do some of her prop duties,” the lawsuit said. “Production was behind that day and Hannah was acutely aware of the need to attend to her prop duties as well, for scenes that afternoon.”

In the next fifteen minutes, Hutchins was shot dead and director Joel Souza was wounded.

“Had Hannah been called back in, she would have re-inspected the weapon, and every round again, and instructed Baldwin on safe gun practice with the cross draw, as was her standard practice on set and under circumstances where (1) Baldwin did not respond to Hannah’s request on October 15 to schedule cross draw training and (2) the gun had been out of her possession for 15 minutes,” reads the lawsuit. 

Alec Baldwin has denied being responsible for Halyna Hutchins’ death on the set of Rust. The actor went so far as to claim that he didn’t even fire the gun, and that it instead just went off.

“Dukes of Hazzard” star John Schneider posted a lengthy video challenging Alec Baldwin’s claim.

The tragic shooting on the set of Rust is still being investigated. As of the time of writing, prosecutors have said that criminal charges are not off the table for Baldwin, Gutierrez-Reed, or anyone else that may be involved.