Was 'Rust' sabotaged? Hannah Gutierrez's lawyer claims 'bad intentions' led to death
As police are still trying to piece together what exactly happened on the set of 'Rust' on October 21, the lawyer for the film's armorer has a new theory. Jason Bowles, who is representing Hannah Gutierrez-Reed in the matter, believes the shooting of Halyna Hutchins was a result of someone's "bad intentions" for wanting "an incident on set."
Ever since the shooting of Hutchins, Gutierrez has gone underground and refused to talk to the press. She's faced massive backlash from her co-workers on set, with 'Rust' being only her second film as an armorer. In fact, the shooting isn't even the first time she has got into trouble. As we reported, actor Nicholas Cage once screamed at Gutierrez for firing a live gun on set. Another time, she gave a weapon to an 11-year-old actress without checking it properly.
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Speaking to Good Morning America on November 3, Bowles attempted to flip the narrative, telling Michael Strahan that Gutierrez had done her job properly. Instead, he put the blame solely on the film's assistant director, Dave Halls, who handed the gun to star Alec Baldwin.
'She did check it'
In his appearance on GMA, Bowles defended his client by saying, "She did spin it. She did check it. She did by spinning it." He said that Gutierrez had filled the chamber with six dummy rounds from the box specifically marked 'dummy rounds'. He added, "There was a box labeled ‘dummy rounds’ that Hannah had been pulling from, she knew were dummy rounds." So how did a live round end up in the gun?
According to Bowles, "Somebody put that live round or live rounds in that box. When you do that, you can only have bad intentions because you’re going to confuse the rounds if you’re the armorer and they appear very similarly. The dummy rounds look like a regular live round…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."
When asked if he had any evidence, Bowles replied, "We know Hannah did not put the live rounds in that box. We know the live rounds shouldn’t have been in that box, but they were. There can be very few explanations for why live rounds end up in a box of dummy prop ammunition on a movie set, and one of them is that somebody wants to go into a firearm and wants there to be an incident on the set. There is no other reason to mix a live round with the dummies. There’s just none."
Spotlight on AD Dave Halls
As we have reported in the past, Halls was supposed to be the film's "last line of defense" against such incidents. He's been regularly blamed for not checking the safety, and Bowles hinted that he may have played a role in the sabotage. He said Gutierrez confirmed the dummy rounds were in the chamber by checking it and showing it to Halls. "We then know he had the firearm in the church and that firearm then ended up with Mr. Baldwin. It was not given to Mr. Baldwin by Hannah. I believe it went to him through Mr. Halls."
It's unclear if that's exactly what happened on set. Early reports indicate Gutierrez left the gun along with two others on a cart outside the church and Halls just grabbed one from there. The police so far have not released any statements supporting this narrative but did note that there were plenty of live rounds recovered from the set. Whether Bowles' story is the truth or not, only time will tell.