‘Rust’ Armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed Thought Gun Used In Fatal Shooting Was Filled With Blanks

Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the armorer on the set of Rust thought that she loaded the guns with blanks before it was handed off to Alec Baldwin, according to her lawyers. The gun fired killing director of photography Halyna Hutchins.

“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,” her lawyer, Jason Bowles, told NBC News. “She loaded rounds from that box into the handgun only to later find out – and 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 this set. There’s no other reason you would do that.”

Her lawyer also maintains that foul play is a possibility, due to the fact that several members of the crew quit the same day as the shooting due to payment disputes.

“I think… you can’t rule anybody out at this point. because we know a couple of facts: We know there was a live round in a box of dummy rounds that shouldn’t have been there, at least one live round. We had people who had left the set, who had walked out because they were disgruntled. We have a timeframe between 11 and one approximately that day in which the firearms at times were unattended. So there was [an] opportunity to tamper with this scene,” Bowles said.

Gutierrez Reed was not present on set during the shooting.

Lawyers for Gutierrez Reed said she is devastated and heartbroken by the tragedy and cooperating with the investigation.

Baldwin was practicing a cross-draw on set when he accidentally discharged the weapon. He had previously been very careful with firearms on set and was apparently heartbroken at the tragic accident.