2 Attachment(s)
Rust Movie Armorer's Lawyer Suggests Wild Sabotage Theory
The lawyers for Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer on the set of the movie Rust, suggest a wild new sabotage theory as the reason behind the fatal shooting. Alec Baldwin is the lead actor and also a producer on Rust, a western that was being shot in New Mexico, which suffered a tragedy on set when Baldwin fired a revolver he believed to be filled with blanks, killing the director of photography, Halyna Hutchins, and injuring director Joel Souza. Rust co-stars Travis Fimmel, Jensen Ackles, Brady Noon, and Frances Fisher.
The incident occurred on October 1st inside the Church of the New Mexico set of Rust during a rehearsal, where the gun Baldwin was using, a .45 Long Colt Revolver, went off, shooting a projectile that killed Hutchins and wounded Souza. Since the incident, local and Federal authorities have been investigating the case, with multiple people involved in the production shifting blame to one another. From armorer Gutierrez-Reed to assistant director Dave Halls to actor/producer Baldwin, the blame over the incident continues to jump, with one new group now added to the mix.
On Today, the lawyers for Rust armorer Gutierrez-Reed, Jason Bowles and Robert Gorence, spoke about the incident, bringing up the theory that disgruntled employees may be to blame, suggesting that one of them may have planted the live round that killed Hutchins inside a box of dummy rounds. The comments come on the heels of the fact that hours before the shooting took place, about six members of the camera crew walked off the set because of issues around payment and housing. The lawyers suggest that this could potentially have been a motivation for sabotaging the set by mixing in a live round with dummy rounds. Read what Bowles had to say below:
Quote:
"I believe that somebody who would do that would want to sabotage the set, want to a prove point, want to say that they’re disgruntled, that they’re unhappy. And we know that people had walked off the set the day before.”
Additionally, Bowles said “I think you can’t rule anybody out at this point," when posed with the question that the crew may be to blame for the incident. He went on to say that they know there was a live round in a box of dummy rounds, which should not have been there and that people had walked off of the set, disgruntled. He said this occurred in a time frame between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. (while the crew was at lunch) "in which the firearms at times were unattended, so there was opportunity to tamper with this scene.” Sheriff Mendoza, who is investigating the case, has said that he believes there was "complacency" on the set, and there have been other reports that Rust crew members were using the prop weapons to go "plinking," which is informal target shooting.
As the Rust incident is an ongoing investigation, it's unclear where the blame falls at this point, but that hasn't stopped the media and casual observers from speculating on what happened and who should take the fall. As with any criminal case, it's impossible to know anything for sure until all the facts, forensics, testimony, etc. are completed to paint an accurate picture of what transpired and hold the guilty parties accountable. Regardless of how it concludes, the Rust incident will surely serve as a wake-up call for weapons safety on movie sets, of which negligence has sadly cost the life of a talented filmmaker and will surely affect the lives of those responsible when the investigation is completed.
