More stories

  • in

    ‘Rust’ Armorer Transferred Narcotics on Day of Shooting, Prosecutor Says

    A new charge of evidence tampering was announced as a departing investigator accused the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office of “reprehensible and unprofessional” conduct.The original armorer on the film “Rust,” who was charged with involuntary manslaughter after a gun that was loaded with live ammunition fired on the set and killed the cinematographer, will face an additional charge of evidence tampering related to narcotics, a special prosecutor in the case said Thursday.The new charge against the armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, “relates to the transfer of narcotics to another person” on Oct. 21, 2021, the day of the shooting, “with the intent to prevent criminal prosecution,” the prosecutor, Kari T. Morrissey, said in a statement. A lawyer for Ms. Gutierrez-Reed said that she intended to plead not guilty to both the evidence tampering and the involuntary manslaughter charges.The additional charge was announced as tensions between prosecutors and the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office over the case began to spill into public view. An investigator who was removed from the case after working on it for months for the district attorney’s office sharply criticized the sheriff’s office earlier this week in an email to prosecutors.“The conduct of the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office during and after their initial investigation is reprehensible and unprofessional to a degree I still have no words for,” the investigator, Robert Shilling, wrote in the email he sent Tuesday. “Not I or 200 more proficient investigators than I can/could clean up the mess delivered to your office in October 2022 (1 year since the initial incident … inexcusable).”Mr. Shilling declined to elaborate on the email on Thursday, writing that he was bound by a nondisclosure agreement. Juan Rios, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, declined to comment on the criticism.Mr. Shilling, an independent contractor for the district attorney’s office who has reported to Ms. Morrissey in recent months, had made the criticism in a note in which he addressed a decision to take him off the case and submitted a notice to terminate his own contract. The email was provided to The New York Times on Thursday in response to a public records inquiry.The case has faced numerous complications since a gun that the actor Alec Baldwin was practicing with on the set of “Rust” went off in 2021, killing the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, and wounding its director, Joel Souza.The original prosecution team initially charged Mr. Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter. But that charge was later dropped after a new team reviewed evidence suggesting that the gun he was practicing with had been modified. The special prosecutor who initially helped lead the case had stepped down after her appointment was challenged on legal grounds, and the district attorney in charge of the case, Mary Carmack-Altwies, then stepped back and appointed Ms. Morrissey and Jason Lewis as new special prosecutors.The email from Mr. Shilling, the former chief of the New Mexico State Police, was sent to Ms. Morrissey, Ms. Carmack-Altwies, another member of the district attorney’s office and, improbably, to Jason Bowles, a lawyer for Ms. Gutierrez-Reed. (Mr. Shilling said he had sent the note to Mr. Bowles by mistake because he has the same first name as one of his supervisors. He called his email “unprofessional,” noting that “the victim deserved better.”)On Thursday, Mr. Bowles said in a statement that the announcement of the additional charge after 20 months of investigation with no prior notice to his client was “shocking,” and noted that it came on the heels of the state’s lead investigator “raising serious concerns about the investigation in an email.”“This stinks to high heaven,” Mr. Bowles said.Of the narcotics allegation, Mr. Bowles said in the statement that he hadn’t seen any facts or witnesses statements backing it.Mr. Bowles called the email exchange “beyond troubling” in court papers he filed Thursday afternoon to bolster his request that the case be dismissed, saying that he was concerned that he had initially been asked to erase the erroneously sent email. He asked the judge to require that Mr. Shilling and the prosecutors produce all communications between them.In her statement, Ms. Morrissey defended the integrity of law enforcement’s investigation, writing, “We disagree with Mr. Shilling’s evaluation that any gaps in the investigation conducted by the Santa Fe County Sheriff could not be cured and we are diligently working with the sheriff’s department and our own investigative team to conduct any necessary follow-up that we, as special prosecutors, deem necessary.” More

  • in

    Prosecutor Behind ‘Rust’ Charges Steps Aside, Appointing Replacements

    The involuntary manslaughter case against Alec Baldwin has suffered setbacks, and now the district attorney has withdrawn from the case and named two special prosecutors.The district attorney who brought involuntary manslaughter charges against Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the “Rust” film set in New Mexico is stepping away from the case, her office announced Wednesday, as she named two new special prosecutors to handle the case.The district attorney of Santa Fe County, Mary Carmack-Altwies, had been the face of the prosecution since the beginning. But in recent weeks the case has faced a couple of setbacks: Prosecutors downgraded the charges Mr. Baldwin faces after his lawyers noted that the law he was initially charged under was not passed until after the fatal shooting, and the special prosecutor who was originally named to help with the case, Andrea Reeb, decided to step down after her appointment was challenged in court.The appointment of Ms. Reeb was initially challenged by lawyers for Mr. Baldwin, who argued that it violated the New Mexico Constitution for her to serve as a special prosecutor and a New Mexico legislator at the same time. (She was also an elected member of the state’s House of Representatives.)A lawyer for Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the original armorer on the film “Rust,” who was also charged with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal Oct. 21, 2021, shooting of the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, then raised another issue.The lawyer, Jason Bowles, argued that if Ms. Carmack-Altwies — who had said she needed help prosecuting such a high-profile case — wanted to appoint a new special prosecutor, the law required her to recuse herself from the case entirely. The judge hearing the case agreed, and Ms. Carmack-Altwies was left with the choice to either hire legal help and stay on the case or step back from it and let a new special prosecutor act.She chose to step back, announcing on Wednesday that she would be appointing two New Mexico lawyers, Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis, as special prosecutors.“My responsibility to the people of the First Judicial District is greater than any one case, which is why I have chosen to appoint a special prosecutor in the ‘Rust’ case,” Ms. Carmack-Altwies said in a statement. “Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis will unflinchingly pursue justice in the death of Halyna Hutchins.”Now, the case will move forward without either of the prosecutors who made the decision to charge Mr. Baldwin and Ms. Gutierrez-Reed with involuntary manslaughter, and who reached a plea deal with Dave Halls, the movie’s first assistant director, who had oversight of safety on set. More

  • in

    Alec Baldwin Will Be Charged With Involuntary Manslaughter in ‘Rust’ Killing

    A gun that Mr. Baldwin was rehearsing with went off, killing the film’s cinematographer. The armorer responsible for weapons on set also faces manslaughter charges.Silent footage shows Alec Baldwin practicing a scene with a revolver on the “Rust” movie set before shooting and killing the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins.For more than a year, the actor Alec Baldwin has tried to defend himself against the suggestion that he bore responsibility for the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of “Rust,” a low-budget western he was filming on the outskirts of Santa Fe, N.M.He told detectives he had been assured the gun he was rehearsing with that day did not contain live ammunition, sat down for an extensive television interview, sought indemnification from financial liability in the case and then sued crew members on the film, claiming that they were responsible for handing him a loaded gun.But on Thursday prosecutors said they would charge him with two counts of involuntary manslaughter in the killing of the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, 42, saying they believed he had a duty to ensure the revolver was safe to handle.“We’re trying to definitely make it clear that everybody’s equal under the law, including A-list actors like Alec Baldwin,” Andrea Reeb, a special prosecutor appointed by Santa Fe County’s district attorney to help handle the case, said in an interview. “And we also want to make sure that the safety of the film industry is addressed and things like this don’t happen again.”The film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who loaded the gun that day and was responsible for weapons on the set, will also be charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter. The film’s first assistant director, Dave Halls, who handed Mr. Baldwin the gun, agreed to a plea deal on a charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon.During an interview with detectives, Alec Baldwin said that the gun “should’ve been a cold gun with no rounds inside.”The criminal charges Mr. Baldwin faces came as a surprise to many in the film industry and were strongly disputed by his legal team. A lawyer for Mr. Baldwin, Luke Nikas, said the prosecutors’ decision “distorts Halyna Hutchins’s tragic death and represents a terrible miscarriage of justice.”“Mr. Baldwin had no reason to believe there was a live bullet in the gun — or anywhere on the movie set,” Mr. Nikas said in a statement on Thursday. “He relied on the professionals with whom he worked, who assured him the gun did not have live rounds. We will fight these charges, and we will win.”SAG-AFTRA, the union representing film, television and radio workers, said in a statement that the death of Ms. Hutchins was a “preventable” tragedy but that it was “not a failure of duty or a criminal act on the part of any performer.”“The prosecutor’s contention that an actor has a duty to ensure the functional and mechanical operation of a firearm on a production set is wrong and uninformed,” the union said. “An actor’s job is not to be a firearms or weapons expert.”Mr. Baldwin, 64, has been a household name for decades as a Hollywood leading man, a TV star who played Jack Donaghy in “30 Rock” and former President Donald J. Trump on “Saturday Night Live,” a co-host of the Oscars and the voice of the New York Philharmonic’s radio broadcasts.He has long drawn scrutiny for his offscreen behavior, which has included run-ins with paparazzi, an arrest for riding his bicycle the wrong way on Fifth Avenue, a 2018 arrest over a parking space dispute and feuds waged on social media.But he has never faced a crisis like the one he faces now.Ever since the shooting Mr. Baldwin had sought to strike a delicate balance: publicly maintaining his innocence in an effort to preserve his reputation and career while trying to stay out of legal jeopardy.He appeared on national television, where he said he had been told that the gun did not have live rounds in it, and added that he was only following directions when he pointed it at the cinematographer. “Someone is ​responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but I know it’s not me,” he said in the interview.Privately, a police report said, he had lamented to a detective that fall that “if your name becomes associated with something, nobody wants to work with you anymore — nobody.”After news of the charges spread, about two dozen reporters and photographers camped out on the sidewalk outside his Manhattan apartment, to the consternation of neighbors.If a jury found Mr. Baldwin or Ms. Gutierrez-Reed guilty, it would choose between the two manslaughter charges. The more serious one includes a firearm enhancement and a mandatory five-year sentence; the other charge carries a sentence of up to 18 months.A detective questioned Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer on “Rust,” about the ammunition inside the gun that killed the movie’s cinematographer.The criminal charges against Mr. Baldwin are sure to reopen questions about safety on film sets, and who bears responsibility. The district attorney for Santa Fe County, Mary Carmack-Altwies, said in an interview that Mr. Baldwin had a duty to ensure the gun and the ammunition were properly checked and that he should never have pointed it at anyone. “You should not point a gun at someone that you’re not willing to shoot,” she said. “That goes to basic safety standards.”Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer who was responsible for the weapons on set and loaded the gun that day, told investigators she had checked the gun and all six cartridges she loaded, but she also remarked, “I wish I would’ve checked it more.”One of her lawyers, Jason Bowles, said his client was not responsible for involuntary manslaughter, calling the investigation into the case “flawed.”The shooting on Oct. 21, 2021, which also wounded the film’s director, Joel Souza, took place in a small set meant to look like a church. The film’s first assistant director, Mr. Halls, 63, took the revolver from a gray, two-tiered tray set up outside the church by Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, 25, and handed it to Mr. Baldwin, calling out “cold gun” to indicate it did not contain live ammunition, according to court papers.A lawyer for Mr. Halls, Lisa Torraco, said in a statement that the plea deal allowed him to “put this matter behind him and allow the focus of this tragedy to be on the shooting victims, their family and changing the industry so this type of accident will never happen again.”The prosecutors said they had determined it was part of film industry standards for actors to ensure that the guns they used on set were safe for them to handle, saying they had interviewed several actors who spoke to the importance of those protocols. Mr. Baldwin has pushed back on that idea in the past, saying that in his experience on film sets it was not the practice for actors to check their own guns.Ms. Reeb, the special prosecutor, who is also a Republican member of the New Mexico Legislature, said Ms. Gutierrez-Reed was also responsible for ensuring that the guns on the set did not contain live rounds, saying in an interview that she should have taken each round out of the gun and shaken them in front of the actor — a practice that helps confirm the rounds are dummies, inert cartridges used to resemble real ammunition in a film.Body camera video shows a lieutenant searching for the gun that discharged and fatally wounded a cinematographer on the “Rust” movie set.In the aftermath of the shooting, the authorities found five additional live rounds on the set, including on top of the cart where props were kept and in a belt that Mr. Baldwin was wearing as a costume piece. The investigation by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office did not answer a key question — how live ammunition ended up on a movie set — and Ms. Reeb said that aspect of the case was still unclear. “We may never answer that question,” she said.The tragedy has resulted in several lawsuits, including from crew members who have accused the production of not properly adhering to safety protocols.During interviews with the sheriff’s office, some crew members described a lack of consistent meetings devoted to on-set safety. The night before the shooting, most of the camera crew had quit over complaints about overnight lodging and other concerns; in an email to other people on set informing them he was leaving, Lane Luper, the head of the camera department, wrote that the filming of gunfight scenes was played “very fast and loose,” citing two accidental weapons discharges.A lawyer for Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, who trained on film sets with her father, a veteran Hollywood armorer named Thell Reed, had previously said she filled two roles on the “Rust” set — as armorer and props assistant — which made it difficult for her to focus fully on her job as armorer.Mr. Baldwin has maintained that he is not responsible for the shooting, saying that Ms. Hutchins had been directing him where to point the gun and that he did not pull the trigger before the gun discharged. He told investigators he had pulled the hammer back and let it go in an action that might have set it off.“I know 1,000 percent I’m not responsible for what happened to her,” Mr. Baldwin told an investigator, Detective Alexandria Hancock, in a phone call following the shooting.Ms. Carmack-Altwies, a Democrat who was elected in 2020, said an F.B.I. analysis of the gun showed “conclusively” that the trigger had been pulled.A crime scene technician took photos of Alec Baldwin on the “Rust” movie set shortly after the fatal shooting of the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins.The prosecutors said the people they intended to charge this month would not be arrested but would be expected to appear for a virtual court appearance. A judge in New Mexico will then oversee a preliminary hearing on the charges and determine whether there is probable cause to move forward.Ms. Gutierrez-Reed has also accused Seth Kenney, the primary supplier of guns and ammunition for the film, of being responsible for the shooting, alleging in a lawsuit against him and his company that the supply he sent to the set had mixed live ammunition in with dummy rounds.Mr. Kenney has said he checked all of the rounds he provided to the production to ensure they were not live, saying in a statement that handling the guns and ammunition on set was Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s responsibility.Last year, Matthew Hutchins, the widower of Ms. Hutchins, agreed to settle his wrongful death lawsuit against the “Rust” production. Under the agreement, Mr. Hutchins would become an executive producer of “Rust,” which had been set to resume filming this month. It was not immediately clear how the planned charges would affect those plans.A lawyer for Mr. Hutchins, Brian J. Panish, said in a statement that he agreed with the decision to bring criminal charges.“It is a comfort to the family that, in New Mexico, no one is above the law,” Mr. Panish said. “We support the charges, will fully cooperate with this prosecution and fervently hope the justice system works to protect the public and hold accountable those who break the law.”Brooks Barnes More

  • in

    Prosecutors to Announce Whether They Plan Charges in ‘Rust’ Case

    More than a year after the fatal shooting, Santa Fe County prosecutors said they would announce on Thursday whether anyone would be charged in the case.Prosecutors in New Mexico are set to announce on Thursday whether they will file criminal charges in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of “Rust,” after more than a year of investigation and delays.The district attorney’s office that serves Santa Fe County said on Wednesday that the district attorney, Mary Carmack-Altwies, and the special prosecutor appointed to investigate the case, Andrea Reeb, would announce the decision in a written statement. The office has spent more than two months weighing a charging decision after the county sheriff’s office delivered its final investigatory report.While requesting additional funding from state officials last year, the office said that up to four people — including the actor Alec Baldwin, who was holding the gun when it went off — could be charged in the shooting. The district attorney’s office said in its request that any decision to bring charges would result in high-profile and costly trials.While Ms. Carmack-Altwies made it clear in the funding request that her office had not decided whether to bring charges — “If charges are warranted,” she began one sentence — it also went into greater detail than she had in the past. “One of the possible defendants is well-known movie actor Alec Baldwin,” said one of the attached documents.The state approved more than $300,000 for the hiring of additional employees, with the possibility of more funds later on.On Oct. 21, 2021, Mr. Baldwin was positioning an old-fashioned revolver for a close-up on the set of the western when the gun discharged, killing the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, and wounding the film’s director, Joel Souza. Mr. Baldwin has denied wrongdoing, asserting that he did not pull the trigger and that Ms. Hutchins was directing him where to point the gun.Central to the investigation by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office were Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the crew member in charge of the guns on the set; Dave Halls, the movie’s first assistant director, who said he inspected the gun that day before handing it to Mr. Baldwin; Seth Kenney, the movie’s primary supplier of guns and ammunition; and Sarah Zachry, the movie’s props master, who worked closely with Ms. Gutierrez-Reed. All four individuals have denied wrongdoing in interviews with investigators or through their lawyers.After the shooting, investigators found five live rounds on the set, in addition to the bullet that had been fired from the gun. The final report by the sheriff’s office did not offer any theories about how that ammunition ended up on the set. More

  • in

    Sheriff Delivers Results of ‘Rust’ Shooting Investigation to Prosecutors

    The Santa Fe County District Attorney’s Office must now decide whether to file charges. The sheriff’s office sought to determine how a live round got into the gun Alec Baldwin was holding.The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday delivered to local prosecutors its investigative report into the shooting on the set of “Rust” that killed the film’s cinematographer and wounded its director, bringing the district attorney’s office closer to a decision about whether to file criminal charges.The submission of the report, which the sheriff’s office declined to immediately release, came more than a year after the office began investigating how live bullets ended up on the set in New Mexico. The film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, 42, was fatally shot when a gun the actor Alec Baldwin was rehearsing with went off.On Thursday morning, the sheriff’s investigative team met with the district attorney, Mary Carmack-Altwies, and the special prosecutor appointed to help with the case, Andrea Reeb, said Heather Brewer, a spokeswoman for the Santa Fe County District Attorney’s Office.“The district attorney and her team of investigators and prosecutors will now begin a thorough review of the information and evidence to make a thoughtful, timely decision about whether to bring charges,” Ms. Brewer said in a statement.A spokesman for the sheriff’s office, Juan Rios, said the report would not be publicly released before Nov. 10. Ms. Brewer said the sheriff’s office needed to redact the document before sharing it with the public.In an August request asking state officials for more money, Ms. Carmack-Altwies wrote that she did not have sufficient funds to prosecute such a high-profile case, and that up to four people could be charged.County investigators have interviewed dozens of people about the shooting, including Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer who was in charge of guns and ammunition on the film set; Dave Halls, the movie’s first assistant director, who took the gun from Ms. Gutierrez-Reed and later handed it to Mr. Baldwin; and Seth Kenney, who has been described as the primary supplier of guns and ammunition for “Rust.”Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, Mr. Halls, Mr. Kenney and Mr. Baldwin, an actor and producer of the movie, have all denied culpability. Several lawsuits have been filed, alleging, among other things, a failure to properly follow safety protocols; Ms. Hutchins’s family recently reached a settlement with Mr. Baldwin and other “Rust” producers.Ms. Hutchins was fatally shot during the filming of the western on Oct. 21, 2021, while Mr. Baldwin was practicing drawing an old-fashioned revolver for a scene inside a spare wooden church. He had been told it contained no live rounds, but it suddenly fired, killing Ms. Hutchins and wounding Joel Souza, the film’s director.In a television interview last year, Mr. Baldwin said that he was told the gun was safe to handle and that Ms. Hutchins was instructing him where he should point it. The actor said he did not pull the trigger, but rather that he pulled back the hammer of the gun and let it go just before it discharged.State regulators at the New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Bureau found a serious breach of industry standards, which require that live ammunition should never be brought on set. The production, which plans to resume filming in January, is contesting the fine issued by regulators.If the district attorney decides to bring charges, a judge in New Mexico would consider whether there is probable cause for the charges to move forward. More

  • in

    ‘Rust’ Production Appeals Fine for Cinematographer’s Death

    The company, which was fined the maximum penalty allowed under state law, maintained that it did not violate safety protocols.The production company behind the movie “Rust” on Monday contested a fine issued by New Mexico state regulators, who cited the production for “plain indifference to the recognized hazards associated with the use of firearms on set” that resulted in the shooting death of the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins.The company, Rust Movie Productions, LLC, said in a filing Monday that it “did not ‘willfully’ violate any safety protocol, and in fact enforced all applicable safety protocols.” The producers also denied that the film’s armorer, who was in charge of weapons, had been overburdened with other duties, as her lawyers have claimed.Last month, the state fined the production company the maximum penalty allowed — $136,793 — asserting that the company had demonstrated indifference to firearm safety hazards. In a report, the Occupational Health & Safety Bureau of the New Mexico Environment Department said the production had not properly responded when there were two improper weapons discharges on set involving blank rounds, and that the production did not properly hold safety meetings or distribute safety bulletins.In a filing to the agency, lawyers for the production company wrote that the discharges had been “properly addressed,” including with safety briefings for the cast and crew, and said that none of the discharges involved violations of firearm safety protocols. Assistant directors for “Rust” were told to hold safety meetings on the days in which firearms would be used, the filing said.“In fact, a safety meeting was held the morning of the incident,” it said.On Oct. 21, the actor Alec Baldwin was practicing with an old-fashioned revolver he had been told did not contain live ammunition when the gun discharged a bullet that killed Ms. Hutchins and injured Joel Souza, the movie’s director. Mr. Baldwin has sought protection from financial responsibility in the legal disputes arising from the incident.In its report, the New Mexico agency also faulted the production for “failing to ensure that the handling of deadly weapons was afforded the time and effort needed to keep the cast and crew safe,” citing claims from the movie’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, that her extra duties as a props assistant sometimes took her away from her job overseeing the firearms on set. The agency also said the production did not give its staff enough time to inspect ammunition to make sure that no live rounds were present.The production company denied that Ms. Gutierrez-Reed was overburdened, writing that her armorer duties “always took precedence” over her prop duties and that she was given sufficient time to inspect the ammunition, according to their filing. More

  • in

    Criminal Charges Still Possible in ‘Rust’ Shooting, Sheriff Says

    Newly released evidence shows the leads investigators pursued as they try to learn how a live round got into Alec Baldwin’s gun, which fired, killing the film’s cinematographer.Six months after Alec Baldwin fatally shot a cinematographer on the set of the film “Rust” while practicing with a gun that had been improperly loaded with live ammunition, Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said Tuesday that “I don’t think anybody is off the hook when it comes to criminal charges.”Live ammunition is not supposed to be used on film sets. In an interview on NBC’s “Today” show, Sheriff Mendoza said that no one had admitted to bringing live rounds onto the set of “Rust,” but indicated that he was concerned by evidence suggesting that a member of its crew had expressed interest in using live ammunition while working on a previous film.“There was information from text messages that was concerning, based on the fact that live ammo was spoke about and was possibly used on a prior movie set,” Sheriff Mendoza said in the interview, “and that was just a few months before the ‘Rust’ movie set and production began.”He appeared to be referring to text messages from the “Rust” armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was responsible for gun safety on the set, in which she indicated that she had expressed interest in shooting “actual ammunition” last summer when she was working on a Nicolas Cage Western called “The Old Way,” which was filmed in Montana.Ms. Gutierrez-Reed texted Seth Kenney, who provides weapons and ammunition for film productions, in August and asked him whether she could “shoot hot rounds,” according to a summary of the text exchange released this week by investigators.Mr. Kenney texted her back, asking what she meant by “hot round.”“Like a pretty big load of actual ammunition,” Ms. Gutierrez-Reed replied.Mr. Kenney told her to never shoot live ammunition out of guns being used on a film set, texting, “It’s a serious mistake, always ends in tears.”“Good to know,” Ms. Gutierrez-Reed replied, according to the case report. “I’m still gonna shoot mine tho.”The summary of the text exchange was included in a tranche of evidence and investigative reports that was released Monday by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office. The documents indicated some of the threads that detectives have been following as they try to determine how live ammunition got into the gun Mr. Baldwin was practicing with on Oct. 21 when it discharged, killing the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins.The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office released silent footage of Alec Baldwin practicing a scene with a revolver on the set of the Western before accidentally shooting and killing the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins.The newly released evidence paints a picture of a sometimes chaotic film set, where some crew members had expressed concerns about gun safety and, after Ms. Hutchins’s death, some crew members disparaged others in texts and to investigators.The sheriff’s office said on Monday that it is waiting on several key pieces of evidence that it needs to complete its investigation.Jason Bowles, a lawyer for Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, said in an email that his client’s text messages indicated that she had been asking Mr. Kenney, then a mentor, when she could fire rounds “through a historical weapon to see how it functioned.” He said that she never intended to fire it during production or while on the set.“Hannah has never brought live rounds to any movie set nor has she ever fired them on set,” Mr. Bowles said in the email.Ms. Gutierrez-Reed was 24 and had been working as an armorer for less than a year when she took the “Rust” job, her second as an armorer. The daughter of a well-known Hollywood armorer named Thell Reed, she told detectives that she had been “handling guns her whole life.”Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s discussion of live ammunition on the Montana film set is not the only thread investigators have been following.Around the same time that Ms. Gutierrez-Reed was on the set of “The Old Way,” her father and Mr. Kenney were in Texas training actors in the Paramount+ Western series “1883,” according to notes from a detective’s interview with Mr. Reed from November. Part of Mr. Reed’s job was training actors with live ammunition in an area away from the set, and he told a detective that the rest of his ammunition ended up being left with Mr. Kenney.One of the questions investigators have focused on is where the ammunition used on “Rust” came from. Mr. Kenney supplied “Rust” with ammunition and about 30 guns, and Ms. Gutierrez-Reed sued Mr. Kenney and his company earlier this year, alleging that the company had in fact supplied the movie with a mixture of dummy rounds and live ammunition.Understand What Happened on the Set of ‘Rust’Card 1 of 6A fatal shooting. More