A distraught Alec Baldwin lingers in the parking lot outside the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office
(Picture: AP)A disgruntled crew member could have sabotaged a gun handed to Alec Baldwin moments before he fatally shot a cinematographer, a lawyer for the movie’s armourer has claimed.
Baldwin, 63, accidentally shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal for the movie Rust in New Mexico last month.
Jason Bowles, a lawyer for armourer Hannah Gutierrez Reed, claimed on US TV that a disgruntled crew member could have added a live round to the gun as his client had carried out a safety inspection just before the fatal shooting.
“We’re afraid that could have been what happened here, that somebody intended to sabotage this set with a live round intentionally placed in a box of dummies,” Bowles said on Good Morning America.
Jason Bowles, attorney for “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, says Hannah had been pulling rounds from a box labeled dummy rounds and "somebody put that live round or live rounds in that box. When you do that you can only have bad intentions." https://t.co/ojv26xKCNr pic.twitter.com/h0xymPvQuU
— Good Morning America (@GMA) November 3, 2021
“We’re not saying anybody had any intent there was going to be a tragedy of homicide,” he added, “but they wanted to do something to cause a safety incident on set. That’s what we believe happened.”
Detectives had said they were aware that camera operators had walked off the film to protest against what they said were long hours and poor working conditions.
Asked who would intentionally place live ammunition with dummy rounds, Bowles said it could be a person who wanted “to prove a point, to say that they’re disgruntled, they’re unhappy”.
“And we know that people had already walked off the set the day before.”
In a statement released on behalf of Ms Reed, Mr Bowles asked who had added the live round to the fun.
“Hannah kept guns locked up, including throughout lunch on the day in question, and she instructed her department to watch the cart containing the guns when she was pulled away for her other duties or on a lunch break.”
The statement goes on to say that “Hannah did everything in her power to ensure a safe set. She inspected the rounds that she loaded into the firearms that day. She always inspected the rounds.”
The statement added that she inspected the rounds before handing the firearm to assistant director David Halls “by spinning the cylinder and showing him all of the rounds and then handing him the firearm”.
The statement also noted that “(Ms Reed) did firearms training for the actors as well as Mr Baldwin, she fought for more training days and she regularly emphasized to never point a firearm at a person”.
Baldwin wrote “read this”, on the post defending conditions on set following complaints from crew members.
“These producers who supposedly don’t care about their crew have worked tirelessly alongside us,” the post said.
