The 24-year-old set armorer for the film “Rust” broke down after the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, 42, confessing, “I just f***ed up my whole entire career,” as revealed by newly-released video footage.
Hannah Gutierrez Reed was questioned by police on the set after actor-producer Alec Baldwin pointed a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and it went off, wounding director Joel Souza and killing Hutchins. When police asked her if she was the film’s armorer, Reed replied, “I am, or at least I was … welcome to the worst day of my life.”
As she was accompanied to the restroom by a female police officer, Reed continued, “I can’t believe Alec Baldwin was holding the gun. That’s so f***ed,” later telling officers she preferred to remove herself from the rest of the crew and sit in a police vehicle as she lamented, “I just want to get the f*** out of here and never show my face in this industry again. … I’m the only female armorer in the game and I just f***ed up my whole entire career.”
She concluded that she was a “f***ing failure.”
More video revealed paramedics imploring “Halyna, stay with us!” as they desperately tried to save her life.
Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza acknowledged, “’The sheriff’s office is releasing all files associated with our ongoing investigation.”
“New Mexico’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau said Rust Movie Productions must pay $136,793, and distributed a scathing narrative of safety failures in violation of standard industry protocols, including testimony that production managers took limited or no action to address two misfires on set prior to the fatal shooting,” The Daily Mail noted.
Last November, on NBC’s “Today” show, the attorneys for Gutierrez Reed floated the idea that someone might have planted a live round intentionally in the gun that actor-producer Alec Baldwin used when he fatally shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
“Today” show host Savannah Guthrie asked the two attorneys, both of whom are former federal prosecutors, about Gutierrez, “How does she explain how a live round got into that gun?”
Attorney Jason Bowles answered, “I think that’s the most pivotal question in this case and I think that is going to be the question that we want the FBI, want the sheriff, want the district attorney to all address. We know they’re going to address it; we both are former federal prosecutors. The FBI is super-competent. That is the central question to this case, which is, how did a live round get on set and who put that live round on the set?”
“She loaded the gun. Did she load a live round?” Guthrie asked.
Bowles: Well, we don’t even know that, and let me tell you why, Savannah. There was a box of dummy rounds, and the box is labeled “dummy.” Hannah did take from that box — which she, by all accounts should have been able to rely on — that contains only dummy rounds. She loaded rounds from that box into the handgun only later to find out there is a — she had no idea, she inspected the rounds — that there was a live round. Now we don’t know, however, whether that live round came from that box, we’re assuming it did, we’re assuming somebody put the live round in that box, which if you think about that, 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.
Guthrie: Is that your theory of the case, that someone intentionally placed a live round into a box of dummies for the purpose of it ending up in a weapon that would be used on set?
Bowles: We don’t have a theory yet; we are investigating and we’re trying to get all the facts. That’s one of the possibilities, admittedly, that you have a round that’s supposed to contain only dummy bullets, prop ammunition, that have a projectile but are incapable of being fired and they resemble a real round.
Guthrie: Why would someone do that? Who in your mind had the motive and opportunity to do it?
Bowles: I believe that somebody who would do that, would want to sabotage the set, want to prove a point, want to say they’re disgruntled, they’re unhappy. And we know that people had already walked off the set the day before and they’re unhappy 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.
“That is the central question to this case: How did a live round get on set?”@SavannahGuthrie speaks exclusively with Jason Bowles and Robert Gorence, attorneys for “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed, who are speaking out about the investigation for the first time. pic.twitter.com/qTNGiAK5h1
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) November 3, 2021