Hutchins, Halyna (1979-2021)

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      Alec Baldwin Says He Is Not Responsible for Fatal Shooting on ‘Rust’

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      In an emotional interview with ABC News, the actor asserted, ‘Someone put a live bullet in a gun.’The actor Alec Baldwin fiercely insisted he was not to blame in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of a Western being filmed in New Mexico, claiming that another person had accidentally placed a live round in the gun that went off in his grasp as he was rehearsing a scene.“Someone put a live bullet in a gun, a bullet that wasn’t even supposed to be on the property,” Mr. Baldwin said in a television interview that was broadcast on Thursday night. “Someone is ​responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but I know it’s not me.”Mr. Baldwin made the comments in an emotional ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos, the first time that Mr. Baldwin has publicly given an account of what happened in October. The actor’s description of the episode may cast greater scrutiny on crew members and suppliers and the question of who was responsible for safeguarding firearms in the low-budget production.In the interview, excerpts from which had been released on Wednesday, Mr. Baldwin also said that he did not pull the trigger of the gun he was practicing with on the set of “Rust” when it fired a live round.“I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them — never,” Mr. Baldwin said.The fatal shooting took place on Oct. 21 near Santa Fe, N.M., on a movie set designed to be a church. Mr. Baldwin was practicing drawing an old-fashioned revolver that he had been told contained no live rounds when it suddenly fired, killing the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, 42, and wounding its director, Joel Souza, 48.The cinematographer who was killed, Halyna Hutchins, was mourned in October at a candlelight vigil in Burbank, Calif. Chris Pizzello/Associated PressMr. Baldwin said that he was stunned by what happened and that at least 45 minutes passed after the gun went off before he realized that it could have contained a live round..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“I stood over her for 60 seconds as she just laid there kind of in shock,” Mr. Baldwin said.The actor added that he did not cock the hammer of the gun, but pulled it back as far as he could and let it go in an action that might have set it off. “I let go of the hammer — bang, the gun goes off.”Investigators are seeking to determine how a live round got into the gun that Mr. Baldwin was practicing with, why the crew members who inspected it on set failed to notice, and why the gun fired.Mr. Baldwin’s contention that he had not pulled the trigger was supported by a lawyer for the film’s assistant director, Dave Halls, who had been standing near Mr. Baldwin inside the church set when the gun fired.The lawyer, Lisa Torraco, told the ABC News show “Good Morning America” on Thursday that Mr. Halls had told her that “the entire time Baldwin had his finger outside the trigger guard, parallel to the barrel.” She said Mr. Halls had told her that “since Day 1, he thought it was a misfire.”In the ABC interview, Mr. Baldwin also said he recalled that shortly before the shooting, Mr. Halls had told him, “This is a cold gun,” an industry term implying that firearm does not have live rounds and is safe to use.“When he’s saying, ‘This is a cold gun,’ what he’s saying to everybody on the set is, ‘You can relax,’” Mr. Baldwin said.Mr. Baldwin, who has come under intense criticism after the shooting, has already been questioned by detectives and is cooperating with the investigation. No one has been charged in connection with the shooting, and authorities have not placed blame on any individual.“I got countless people online saying, ‘You idiot, you never point a gun at someone,’” Mr. Baldwin said. “Well, unless you’re told it’s empty and it’s the director of photography who’s instructing you on the angle for a shot we’re going to do.”Some gun experts said it was possible that the gun, a single-action revolver, could have discharged without Mr. Baldwin’s pulling the trigger if he had pulled back the revolver’s hammer and released it before it was fully cocked. But they questioned whether that would have created enough force to fire the live round.Clay Van Sickle, a movie industry armorer who did not work on “Rust,” said guns generally go off only when someone pulls the trigger. “Unless that gun was in a horrible state of disrepair,” he said, “there is no other way that gun could have gone off.”As detectives work to trace the source of the live round, one focus has been on Seth Kenney, who supplied blanks and dummy rounds for the production.According to court documents filed on Tuesday, detectives are trying to determine whether Mr. Kenney sent live ammunition as well as blanks and dummies, and they have searched his business in Albuquerque, PDQ Arm & Prop.Mr. Kenney said in an interview that he was confident he was not the source of any live round.“It is not a possibility that they came from PDQ or from myself personally,” he told “Good Morning America.”Thell Reed, a weapons expert who has worked and consulted on a number of films, has told detectives that he supplied live rounds to Mr. Kenney for training on another film, according to court documents. Mr. Reed, who is the father of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the “Rust” armorer, suggested they might match live rounds found on “Rust.”The film’s prop master, Sarah Zachry, has told investigators, according to the court documents, that the ammunition on the set had come from “various sources” — from Mr. Kenney, but also from Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, who was said to have brought some from a previous production, and from a person identified only as “Billy Ray.”Since the fatal shooting, two crew members who were in the room when the gun went off have filed separate lawsuits, naming Mr. Baldwin, the film’s producers and other crew members including Mr. Halls and Ms. Gutierrez-Reed as defendants.Both lawsuits say Mr. Baldwin should have checked the gun himself to see whether it was safe to handle. In the interview, Mr. Baldwin said that on the day of the shooting, one of the plaintiffs touched his shoulder and said he bore no responsibility for what happened.Mr. Baldwin declined to say which plaintiff it was. Serge Svetnoy, one of the crew members who filed suit, told ABC that he did say that to Mr. Baldwin but later changed his mind.The actor insisted that the tragedy occurred after he was handed the gun and was told it was safe, and that Ms. Hutchins herself had told him how to position it. Both he and Ms. Hutchins assumed the gun was safe to handle, he said.“I am holding the gun where she told me to hold it,” Mr. Baldwin said. “I can’t imagine I’d ever do a movie that had a gun in it again.”Matt Stevens More

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      Alec Baldwin Says He ‘Didn’t Pull the Trigger’ in ‘Rust’ Killing

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      The actor said in a brief excerpt from an upcoming interview with ABC News that he had not pulled the trigger when the gun he was holding went off, killing the cinematographer.The actor Alec Baldwin said in an upcoming television interview that he did not pull the trigger of the gun he was practicing with on the set of the film “Rust,” which fired a live round as he held it, killing the film’s cinematographer and wounding its director.“I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them — never,” Mr. Baldwin told George Stephanopoulos in an ABC News interview that is scheduled to be broadcast Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern. The network posted brief excerpts from the interview Wednesday as a preview.The exchange came after Mr. Stephanopoulos noted that it had not been part of the script for the trigger to be pulled in that scene. Mr. Baldwin jumped in: “Well, the trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger.”He did not elaborate on why the gun might have gone off in the excerpt ABC provided.Mr. Baldwin’s account adds another layer of mystery onto the fatal shooting, which took place on Oct. 21 on a set of a church near Santa Fe, N.M. Mr. Baldwin was practicing drawing an old-fashioned revolver that he had been told contained no live rounds when it suddenly fired, killing the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, 42, and wounding its director, Joel Souza, 48.It still remains unclear how a lethal bullet got into the gun that he was practicing with, and why the crew members who handled it before passing it to Mr. Baldwin failed to detect that it contained a live round when it was supposed to have only dummies.In the clip of the interview, Mr. Baldwin said he does not know why a real bullet — which was not even supposed to be on the property — was loaded into the gun. Investigators are trying to determine whether the supplier of blanks and dummy rounds for the movie, Seth Kenney, sent live ammunition as well, according to court documents filed on Tuesday.There have been some suggestions that there may have been a problem with the gun. The armorer for “Rust,” Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, told a detective that she had loaded it with five dummy rounds before lunch, but that “there was one round that wouldn’t go in,” so she cleaned it out after lunch and added a sixth round, according to an affidavit filed Tuesday.In the ABC interview, Mr. Baldwin grew visibly emotional as he spoke about Ms. Hutchins, saying “she was someone who was loved by everyone who worked” with her.“I think back and I think of what could I have done?” Mr. Baldwin said.This is the first time that Mr. Baldwin has given his full account of what happened to the public. Last month, two crew members who were in the room when the gun went off filed separate lawsuits, naming Mr. Baldwin, the film’s producers and other crew members as defendants. Both lawsuits alleged that Mr. Baldwin should have checked the gun himself to see if it was safe to handle. More

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      How Did Live Ammunition Get on the 'Rust' Film Set?

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      Investigators are trying to determine whether a supplier who was supposed to provide the movie with blanks and dummies may have sent live rounds.ALBUQUERQUE — Detectives investigating the deadly shooting on the set of the film “Rust” are trying to determine whether Seth Kenney, who was supposed to provide the production with blanks and dummy rounds, may have sent live ammunition as well, according to court documents filed on Tuesday.The focus on Mr. Kenney came to light in a warrant issued to search his business in Albuquerque, called PDQ Arm & Prop. Investigators sought the search warrant after crew members told them that ammunition for “Rust” came from various sources, including Mr. Kenney, who has also done business out of Arizona and California.The fatal shooting took place on Oct. 21, when the actor Alec Baldwin was practicing drawing a gun he had been told contained no live rounds, when it went off, killing the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, 42, and wounding its director, Joel Souza, 48.Immediately after the shooting the film’s prop master, Sarah Zachry, inspected the box of ammunition on a props cart on the set and discovered that some cartridges “did not rattle,” according to an affidavit for the search warrant filed Tuesday in Bernalillo County.Dummy rounds are often distinguished from live rounds by replacing the powder inside with a ball bearing, giving the round a distinctive rattle when shaken.The fact that the cartridges did not rattle suggested there were other live rounds on set, Ms. Zachry told a detective, according to the court document.“Sarah said this led her to believe some of the other rounds in that box were live ammo,” according to the affidavit, which was signed by Detective Alexandria Hancock of the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s office.The affidavit details efforts by investigators to trace the source of all the ammunition used in the production.Ms. Zachry said the ammunition on the set had come from “various sources,” according to the affidavit, including from Mr. Kenney; Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the film’s armorer, who was said to have brought some from a previous production; and from someone identified only as “Billy Ray.”Ms. Gutierrez-Reed told investigators that the guns and ammunition used on the “Rust” set had been supplied by Mr. Kenney, according to the affidavit.On Oct. 27, as the police executed a search warrant on the set, Mr. Kenney told investigators that he had provided the production with dummy rounds and blanks that came from a company called Starline Brass, the affidavit said. Two days later, it said, Mr. Kenney called back to say “he may know where the live rounds came from.”In that call, Mr. Kenney told the police that a couple of years ago he had received “reloaded ammunition” from a friend, the affidavit said. “Reloaded ammunition” can refer to ammunition that has been reconstituted from the brass casing of a fired round by adding a new bullet, primer and powder, according to Clay Van Sickle, a movie industry armorer.Mr. Kenney declined to comment in response to a phone call.Mr. Kenney told investigators that in this case, he believed the ammunition had been reloaded because the cartridge of a live round had the Starline Brass logo on it, and Starline Brass “only sells components of ammunition, and not live ammunition, and therefore it had to be a reloaded round.”Starline, which is based in Sedalia, Mo., did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Another lead on where the live round might have originated came from Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s father, Thell Reed, a weapons expert who has worked and consulted on a number of films.The detective said that she received a statement from Mr. Reed in mid-November saying that he had worked with Mr. Kenney on another set in August or September where the actors were trained “for live fire with firearms, conducted on a firearms range,” and that Mr. Kenney had asked him to bring extra live ammunition in case they ran out.“Thell stated he did bring an ‘ammo can’ with live ammunition from a friend,” the affidavit said, “and this ammunition was not factory made rounds.” Mr. Reed said that the can had contained “approximately 200-300 rounds,” the document said.Mr. Reed told the police that when the production was over, Mr. Kenney had taken the remainder of the ammunition that had been in the can back to New Mexico.“Thell stated this ammunition may match the ammunition found on the set of ‘Rust,’” the affidavit said.Suspected live ammunition was among the items taken during a search of the set the day after the shooting, and identified during processing by a crime scene technician, Marissa Poppell, according to the affidavit. More

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      'Rust' Script Supervisor Sues Alec Baldwin and Others

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      A lawsuit filed by the supervisor, Mamie Mitchell, said an injury or death on the set was “a likely result” of the production’s failure to follow safety protocols.A script supervisor for the movie “Rust” recalled Wednesday how she had been watching the actor Alec Baldwin practicing a move with a gun on the set in New Mexico last month, holding her script and checking photos on her iPhone to make sure that he was wearing the right shirt and vest, when she heard a loud blast.“Then, an explosion,’’ the supervisor, Mamie Mitchell, recalled at a news conference in Los Angeles. “A deafening, loud gunshot. I was stunned. I heard someone moaning and I turned around and my director was falling backward and holding his upper body.”Then, she said, she turned and saw the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, sink down to the ground. Law enforcement officials have said that Ms. Hutchins, 42, was shot and killed, and the film’s director, Joel Souza, 48, was wounded, when the gun that Mr. Baldwin had been practicing with, which he had been told did not contain any live ammunition, discharged, firing a real bullet that struck them both.Ms. Mitchell, who said that she ran out of the wooden church set and used the phone in her hand to call 911, announced Wednesday that she had filed a lawsuit against the producers on the film, including Mr. Baldwin, and several members of its crew.“Alec Baldwin intentionally, without just cause or excuse, cocked and fired the loaded gun even though the upcoming scene to be filmed did not call for the cocking and firing of a firearm,” the lawsuit, which was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, said.The script supervisor, Mamie Mitchell, at the news conference Wednesday announcing the lawsuit. Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images“The fact that live ammunition was allowed on a movie set, that guns and ammunition were left unattended, that the gun in question was handed to Mr. Baldwin by the assistant director who had no business doing so, the fact that safety bulletins were not promulgated or ignored, coupled with the fact that the scene in question did not call for a gun to be fired at all, makes this a case where injury or death was much more than just a possibility — it was a likely result,” the lawsuit said..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}A lawyer for Mr. Baldwin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The lawsuit was announced at a news conference with Ms. Mitchell’s lawyer, Gloria Allred.It claims assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and deliberate infliction of harm, and requested unspecified damages. It said Ms. Mitchell, who was standing less than four feet from Mr. Baldwin when the revolver discharged, “sustained serious physical trauma and shock and injury to her nervous system and person” and “will in the future be prevented from attending to her usual occupation as a script supervisor.”The shooting took place Oct. 21 on the set of the film on Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe County, N.M., as Mr. Baldwin prepared to film a close-up of him drawing a .45 revolver from a shoulder holster. According to Ms. Mitchell’s lawsuit, Mr. Baldwin failed to check the gun himself to see if it was loaded before handling it.They were preparing for three tight camera shots, according to the lawsuit: one of Mr. Baldwin’s eyes, one of a blood stain on his shoulder, and one of his “torso as he reached his hand down to his holster and removed the gun.”According to court papers filed by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department, the movie’s first assistant director, Dave Halls, had called out “cold gun” before handing the revolver to Mr. Baldwin, using a term indicating that the gun did not contain live ammunition. A lawyer for the movie’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, said that Ms. Gutierrez-Reed had loaded the revolver with what she believed to have been dummy rounds, which do not contain gunpowder and cannot be fired.The lawsuit charges that Mr. Baldwin knew that it was typical protocol for an armorer or prop master to hand a gun to the actor after demonstrating that it is empty — not for the first assistant director to do so — and that Mr. Baldwin failed to follow those rules. It also charges that Ms. Gutierrez-Reed allowed guns and ammunition to be left unattended on the set that day. The lawsuit accuses the production of hiring Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, 24, who had just started out her career as a lead armorer in the film industry, as part of a series of “cost-cutting measures.”Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyer, Jason Bowles, has said that his client noticed that day the gun was left unattended for several minutes after she had asked other crew members to watch the firearms and ammunition. Mr. Bowles has defended Ms. Gutierrez’s qualifications for the job, saying that she was dedicated to ensuring safety on set. Previously lawyers for Ms. Gutierrez-Reed said that she had been hired to two positions on the film, “which made it extremely difficult to focus on her job as an armorer.”Mr. Halls, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed and Sarah Zachry, the movie’s prop master, are all named as defendants in Ms. Mitchell’s lawsuit. Ms. Zachry and a lawyer for Mr. Halls did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Mr. Bowles said he had not yet reviewed the lawsuit.Last week, Serge Svetnoy, the film’s gaffer, or chief lighting technician, filed a lawsuit accusing the movie’s producers, Mr. Baldwin and several other crew members of failing to follow appropriate firearm safety protocols that would have prevented the fatal shooting. Mr. Svetnoy said he was standing just six or seven feet away from Mr. Baldwin and said that he was injured by discharge materials from the gun and traumatized by seeing his friend die, trauma that had left him unable to work. More

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      The ‘Rust’ Shooting Spurs a Debate Over Using Guns on Film Sets

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      Alec Baldwin, who fatally shot a cinematographer with a gun he had been told was safe, has called for productions to hire police officers to monitor gun safety.Ever since the actor Alec Baldwin fatally shot the cinematographer of the film “Rust” last month with a gun he had been told, incorrectly, contained no live ammunition, the debate on the use of firearms on sets has been growing.Dwayne Johnson — the action star whose production company has made gun-filled films like the “Fast & Furious” spinoff “Hobbs & Shaw” — told Variety last week that the company would no longer use real guns on set. Dozens of cinematographers have signed a commitment not to work on projects using functional firearms. And a state lawmaker in California is drafting legislation that would ban operational firearms from sets.Mr. Baldwin, who was a producer of “Rust” as well as its star, weighed in this week with his own suggestion: that productions should hire police officers to monitor safety. Mr. Baldwin posted Monday on his Twitter and Instagram accounts: “Every film/TV set that uses guns, fake or otherwise, should have a police officer on set, hired by the production, to specifically monitor weapons safety.”But many in the film industry see the tragedy more as a problem of failing to adhere to existing firearms safety protocols than of requiring new, stricter protocols, and it is unclear if any of the proposed changes will have the momentum to come to fruition.The “Rust” shooting happened on Oct. 21, after an old-fashioned revolver was placed in Mr. Baldwin’s hands and proclaimed “cold,” meaning that it should not have contained any live ammunition. But it did: As Mr. Baldwin practiced drawing the gun for a scene, it fired a real bullet, law-enforcement officials said, killing the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, and wounding its director, Joel Souza. There should not have been any live ammunition on the set at all, according to court papers, and law-enforcement officials are investigating how the gun came to be loaded with a lethal bullet.The backlash to Mr. Baldwin’s proposal to have police officers monitor on-set gun safety included comments from industry veterans like David Simon, the creator of “The Wire,” who tweeted that “the average cop is no more a totem of gun safety than a trained film armorer.”Then there are those calling to ban the use of functional guns — which are supposed to be loaded only with dummies or blanks — on sets. They say that technology has advanced to the point where special effects can be used to create the illusion of convincing gunfire. After the shooting in New Mexico, Craig Zobel, the director of the HBO whodunit “Mare of Easttown,” noted that all of the gunshots on that show were digital. But some studio executives say that there are times when visual effects are not sufficient, and that some actors struggle to make fake weapons that cannot even fire blanks appear convincing.The calls for systematic change are complicated by the fact that it is still unclear exactly why the tragedy occurred.Some crew members voiced concerns about the experience level of the film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, whose lawyers have defended her training and commitment to safety and faulted the production. And the film’s first assistant director, Dave Halls, told a detective investigating the case that he should have checked the gun more thoroughly before Mr. Baldwin handled it, according to an affidavit. (His lawyer later said in a television interview that checking the gun was not his job.) But the central question, of how a live round got into the revolver in the first place, remains a mystery.Despite the remaining questions, the fatal shooting has spurred calls for change inside and outside of the film and television industry..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The governor of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham, said days after the shooting that “if the industry doesn’t come forward with very specific accountable safeguards, they should expect that we will.”Stephen Lighthill, the president of the American Society of Cinematographers and one of the prominent signatories of the statement — first reported by Variety — pledging to avoid operational firearms on sets, said that there had not been a wide-scale conversation around what the industry standard should be before the “Rust” shooting. Cinematographers including Bill Pope of “The Matrix” and Mandy Walker of “Mulan” have signed on to the pledge. The statement was posted with a hashtag:#BanBlanks, calling for an end to the use of blank cartridges, which contain gunpowder and paper wadding or wax.Another signatory, Reed Morano, a cinematographer who directed episodes of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” wrote in an Instagram post that she had once been hit by a blank at close range while operating a camera and wished she had thought more about large-scale change then.“How many more deaths do we need to mourn to prove that this must change?” Ms. Morano wrote.In California, a Democratic state senator who represents Silicon Valley, Dave Cortese, has been drafting legislation that would ban operational firearms from sets, which he said would effectively also ban blanks. Mr. Cortese said in an interview that the current system for safety protocols around handling guns on sets — guidelines outlined by unions and production companies — were not sufficient to ensure enforcement and accountability.“Right now what’s missing is the consequences,” he said. “Life and death is not an OK consequence of an error or omission.”Another legislative approach that is being considered, Mr. Cortese said, is a restriction on certain kinds of blanks. But his preference is for an outright ban on operational firearms and blanks, which he thinks can be replaced with special effects.“Some people say, ‘Why get rid of them?’” Mr. Cortese said. “Why have them? What’s the point in this day and age?”He said he has scheduled a meeting this week with members of the union local that represents armorers, and a bill would likely be considered in February.Those in the film industry who warn against making such rapid and wholesale changes to the industry say safety protocols are usually clear, and usually closely followed.Michael Sabo, who was propmaster on “The Wire” and oversaw the use of operational guns on the set, said he thinks nonfunctional guns would appear fake to viewers. Instead of a ban, he favors tighter restrictions on who can handle them.“You can have some of the best actors in the world, but if they pull a trigger and nothing happens, it’s not real,” he said. “That’s my biggest problem when they say we should ban guns on sets.”Brooks Barnes contributed reporting. More

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      Lawyers for ‘Rust’ Armorer Say Gun Was Briefly Unattended Before Shooting

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      The weapon handed to Alec Baldwin was left on a tray for several minutes, said the lawyers. Earlier, they had said it had been unattended for hours.The lawyers for the armorer on the film “Rust” — who has been under scrutiny since Alec Baldwin fatally shot the movie’s cinematographer with a gun that was not supposed to contain live ammunition — said in interviews on Wednesday that the gun had been left unattended for hours, but later corrected themselves to say it had only been several minutes. The gun left on a prop cart had been loaded with six dummy rounds by the armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who took the prop ammunition from a box labeled “dummies,” said one of her lawyers, Jason Bowles. Dummy rounds contain no gunpowder and are used to resemble bullets on camera.Earlier in the day, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyers, Mr. Bowles and Robert Gorence, said in a television appearance and in an interview with The New York Times that the guns had been left unattended for about two hours on that day, including during the crew’s lunch break. Mr. Bowles later said they had been mistaken, and after consulting Ms. Gutierrez-Reed again, he said they had been locked up in a safe during lunch and had only been left unattended for a total of five to 10 minutes. Mr. Bowles said Ms. Gutierrez-Reed asked her colleagues to watch the cart when she wasn’t there but remembered seeing it left unattended at various points that day.At about 11 a.m. on Oct. 21, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, 24, loaded three firearms that were going to be used later that afternoon during a filming session, including the .45 Long Colt, Mr. Gorence, said. “Was there a duty to safeguard them 24/7?” Mr. Gorence said. “The answer is no, because there were no live rounds.”Even though the gun was declared “cold,” meaning it was not supposed to contain any live ammunition, a live round was in the revolver that killed the movie’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, and wounded the director, Joel Souza. The key question in the investigation is how it got there.According to an affidavit released last week by the Santa Fe County sheriff’s office, the firearms were secured inside a safe on a “prop truck” at lunchtime and Ms. Gutierrez-Reed told a detective that the head of the film’s prop department, Sarah Zachry, opened the safe after lunch and handed the guns to her..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Mr. Bowles said that after lunch, the film’s first assistant director, Dave Halls, asked for the firearm; Ms. Gutierrez-Reed then spun the gun’s cylinder and showed him all six rounds inside — which she believed to all be dummies. Mr. Halls then entered the set, a wooden church, while Ms. Gutierrez-Reed remained outside because there were not supposed to be any gun discharges happening inside that she needed to be present for, the lawyer said.“Hannah thinks the gun is secured,” Mr. Bowles said. “So she goes and does her prop duties.”In addition to working as the film’s armorer, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed was a props assistant, which made it difficult for her to focus fully on her job as armorer, her lawyers have said. She was a nonunion worker and was on the set for about 17 days before the shooting occurred.Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s first job as head armorer was on a western called “The Old Way” starring Nicolas Cage, which was filmed this year, fueling concerns from colleagues on both that film and “Rust” who worried she was too inexperienced for the job.Her lawyers disputed those claims, saying Ms. Gutierrez-Reed trained with her father — the weapons expert Thell Reed — from a young age, and that she would like to continue being an armorer.“She’s a female, 24 years old in a male dominated profession,” Mr. Gorence said. “She wants to work at what she’s been trained to do.” More

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      How the Shooting on the Alec Baldwin Set Happened

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      A reconstruction of the events leading up to the fatal shooting of the cinematographer of “Rust,” the Alec Baldwin western, reveals a troubled production and a series of errors.SANTA FE, N.M — Alec Baldwin was on the set of his latest film, a low-budget western called “Rust,” working on a scene in which his character, a grizzled outlaw named Harland Rust, finds himself in a small wooden church, cornered by a sheriff and a U.S. Marshal, and decides to shoot his way out.Members of the small crew — including the director, cinematographer, cameraman and script supervisor — clustered around Mr. Baldwin inside the cramped, spartan set. The location is on a sprawling ranch outside Santa Fe, where Hollywood has been sending some of its biggest actors to don Stetsons and leather holsters to film westerns since 1955, when Jimmy Stewart made “The Man From Laramie” there.As light poured through the church’s windows, casting slanted rays in the dust that swirled over the pews, a shadow fell, and the crew had to adjust the camera angle.Then it was time for Mr. Baldwin, 63, who was seated on a pew, to practice his scene: a close-up of his hand as he slowly reached across his chest, drew a .45 Long Colt revolver from a shoulder holster and moved it toward the lens of the camera. The crew had been assured the gun was “cold,” meaning it held no live ammunition, according to court papers. In fact, investigators said, it was loaded with a live round. The error would prove fatal.Suddenly there was a loud noise that the director, Joel Souza, later told a detective “sounded like a whip and then loud pop” as the gun went off.The film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, 42, who was standing just feet away from Mr. Baldwin, to the left of the camera, grabbed her midsection and began to stumble backward, fatally struck in the chest by a lead bullet that investigators say passed through her and then wounded the film’s director, Mr. Souza, 48.The small church set where the scene was being filmed.Jae C. Hong/Associated PressThe questions of why there was any live ammunition on a movie set, where it is usually forbidden, and how a revolver loaded with a lethal round was placed in the hands of an actor, have started a complicated inquiry as law enforcement officials in New Mexico try to determine whether negligence on the set of “Rust” rose to the level of a crime. It has raised questions about firearm safety on sets, and whether proper procedures were followed on “Rust,” a troubled production where some members of the crew had quit before the shooting. Those core questions about the gun and ammunition remain unanswered. But a reconstruction of the events based on court papers and interviews with members of the production, crew and law enforcement officials makes it clear that a cascading series of mistakes led to the fatal moment just before 1:48 p.m. on Oct. 21.The fatal shooting has drawn intense news coverage. Journalists gathered Wednesday for a news conference at the Santa Fe County sheriff’s office.Nick Layman/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA Delayed Start, After Trouble on the SetThe “Rust” crew started work before dawn, at about 6:30 a.m., and the crew gathered for breakfast at Bonanza Creek Ranch, where the movie was being filmed.But a major problem had emerged the night before: Six members of the camera crew had sent in resignation letters, citing issues including a lack of hotel accommodations and late paychecks.The tensions on the set came amid a broader national labor battle over working conditions in the industry. As “Rust” went into its second week of work on location in mid-October, the union that represents members of film crews was negotiating a new contract with production studios. The union, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, voted this month to authorize a nationwide strike if talks failed.Mr. Baldwin had arrived on the set about a week after filming had started in early October, and had spent time working on his horseback riding, rehearsing scenes and practicing with guns, including trying to simulate the recoil that is missing when live rounds are not used.Mr. Baldwin was not only the star of the film, which was expected to cost about $6.5 million to make, but one of its producers, along with Ryan Winterstern, Matt DelPiano, Anjul Nigam, Ryan Donnell Smith and Nathan Klingher.After the union’s leaders reached a tentative agreement with the studios, Mr. Baldwin posted an Instagram video — filmed from Santa Fe — in which he urged the rank-and-file members to strike if they were unhappy with the deal. Tensions on the set of “Rust” were building, though. And just days before the fatal shooting, at least two accidental gun discharges on set had put crew members on edge.At a vigil for Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer who was killed, a sign alluded to the recent union negotiations over workplace safety.Kevin Mohatt/ReutersOne former member of the “Rust” crew said in an interview that he had been alarmed by the safety conditions on the production. “It was the most unorganized set I’ve ever seen,” said the crew member, who was granted anonymity because he feared that speaking out would harm his future work prospects.He said there had been concern about the limited experience of the film’s armorer, who was in charge of the weaponry on the set: Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was 24 years old and just starting her career as a head armorer.Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyers, Jason Bowles and Robert Gorence, said in a statement Friday that Ms. Gutierrez-Reed was working two different jobs on the film, “which made it extremely difficult to focus on her job as an armorer.’’ (The production did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the statement.)The lawyers charged that “the whole production set became unsafe due to various factors, including lack of safety meetings,” and suggested that others had been responsible for previous accidental discharges on the set: “The first one on this set was the prop master, and the second was a stunt man after Hannah informed him his gun was hot with blanks.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Even as the tensions brewed, one former “Rust” crew member said, Ms. Hutchins, the cinematographer, bonded with members of the crew, taking some out for sushi after a long day of work.“She was very passionate about what we were all doing,” he recalled.Ms. Hutchins told a friend, Dan Frenkel, over the phone that there were labor tensions but that she thought they could work through them.They could not. Most of the film’s camera crew resigned over issues that were not dissimilar to those that union leaders had been discussing at the bargaining table.Bonanza Creek Ranch, the site of filming, has been a location for movie westerns since the 1950s.Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA Live Round Goes Undetected in Safety CheckThe production had been delayed, but replacement crew members were found, and the crew got back to work.They were working on the church scene when, at about 12:30 p.m., it was time for lunch. Production workers were shuttled in vans to a nearby catering tent. The guns and some ammunition were kept locked in a safe kept inside a white truck, but some ammunition remained unsecured on a cart outside.After lunch, the film’s prop master, Sarah Zachry, entered the combination to the safe and handed the guns to Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, who set them up on a gray cart outside the church.Both Ms. Gutierrez-Reed and Dave Halls, the first assistant director, were supposed to check the guns before handing them to actors.The protocol, Mr. Halls told a detective, was for Ms. Gutierrez-Reed to show him the gun so he could check its barrel for obstructions, and for her to then open the revolver and spin it so he could see the contents of its chambers. Then he would call out “cold gun,” signaling to the crew that the gun did not contain live rounds.When the cast and crew got back from lunch that day, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed showed Mr. Halls the .45 Colt revolver that Mr. Baldwin would handle. Mr. Halls told a detective that he recalled seeing three rounds inside but could not recall whether Ms. Gutierrez-Reed had spun the drum so he could check every chamber and every round.“He advised he should have checked all of them, but didn’t,” Detective Alexandria Hancock wrote.Both Ms. Gutierrez-Reed and Mr. Halls have been the subjects of complaints on previous productions.In 2019 Mr. Halls was fired from a movie, “Freedom’s Path,” after a gun discharged unexpectedly on set, causing a minor injury to a crew member, its production company said. Neither Mr. Halls nor his lawyers responded to requests for comment.Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, who had been learning how to be an armorer from her father, Thell Reed, a Hollywood weapons expert, was just getting started as a head armorer herself. In a recent podcast, she noted that she had just finished filming her first movie as head armorer, a western called “The Old Way” starring Nicolas Cage, and confided that “I almost didn’t take the job because I wasn’t sure if I was ready.”Stu Brumbaugh, a key grip on “The Old Way,” said in an interview that he had recommended Ms. Gutierrez-Reed be fired after he witnessed two unannounced discharges of weapons she was holding, startling others and in one case prompting an angry reaction from Mr. Cage. She was kept on, he said, which he saw as evidence of a broader problem in which producers try to cut costs by hiring less experienced crews. The incident was reported earlier by CNN.Lawyers for Ms. Gutierrez-Reed said that she had “never had an accidental discharge” during her career; they did not respond to follow-up questions about the incident on “The Old Way.”“Ultimately this set would never have been compromised if live ammo were not introduced,” her lawyers said of the “Rust” set. “Hannah has no idea where the live rounds came from.”A “Cold Gun” That Was Anything But“Cold gun!” Mr. Halls called out after lunch as he handed the revolver to Mr. Baldwin. Then, as Mr. Baldwin practiced his draw, the gun went off.Ms. Hutchins stumbled backward and was helped to the ground. Mr. Souza saw blood on her — and then noticed that he was bleeding, too. Ms. Hutchins said she could not feel her legs.Ms. Hutchins, a talented cinematographer who left a husband and son behind, was recalled at a candlelight vigil in Burbank, Calif. David Mcnew/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMamie Mitchell, the movie’s script supervisor, ran out of the church, cellphone in hand, and dialed 911.“We’ve had two people accidentally shot on a movie set by a prop gun,” Ms. Mitchell told the dispatcher. “We need help immediately.”At 1:48 p.m., the sheriff’s department was dispatched to the ranch.Back on the set, Mr. Halls picked up the revolver from a church pew and handed it to Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, who opened it up to see what was inside. Mr. Halls told a detective that he saw at least four rounds with a hole in the side, which sometimes indicate that a round is a dummy. (Dummy rounds contain no gunpowder and are used to resemble bullets on camera.)But there was another round in the gun, he told a detective, one with just a casing, no cap, and which did not have the pierced hole.Real sheriff’s deputies, from Santa Fe County, rushed to the church set, with the first arriving at 2 p.m. Ms. Hutchins was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Albuquerque, where she was pronounced dead. Mr. Souza was taken to a closer hospital.Mr. Baldwin’s western costume was turned over for evidence, because it appeared to be stained with blood.A few days later, Sheriff Adan Mendoza of Santa Fe County would announce what had become increasingly clear: The gun had fired a live round, a lead bullet.The bullet was recovered from the director’s shoulder. Now the investigation is focused on how it got into the revolver.Simon Romero reported from Santa Fe, Julia Jacobs from New York and Graham Bowley from Toronto. Nicole Sperling contributed reporting. More

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      ‘Rust’ Armorer Has ‘No Idea’ How Live Rounds Got on Set, Lawyers Say

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      Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was in charge of firearms on the New Mexico film set where Alec Baldwin fatally shot a cinematographer with a gun that was not supposed to contain live ammunition.Lawyers for Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer on the set of the film where Alec Baldwin fatally shot a cinematographer last week as he rehearsed with a gun he was told had no live ammunition, issued a statement Friday defending her adherence to safety protocols and saying that she did not know how live rounds wound up on the set in New Mexico.“Hannah has no idea where the live rounds came from,” Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyers, Jason Bowles and Robert Gorence, said in the first public statement on her behalf.In their statement, they charged that the set of the film, “Rust,” had been unsafe, and that Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, 24, had been hired to two positions on the film, “which made it extremely difficult to focus on her job as an armorer.’’ The production did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the statement. “She fought for training, days to maintain weapons, and proper time to prepare for gunfire but ultimately was overruled by production and her department,” it said. “The whole production set became unsafe due to various factors, including lack of safety meetings. This was not the fault of Hannah.”Either way, the production set was awash in guns and ammunition. In addition to the guns and ammunition that were recovered in an earlier search, detectives found more when they searched a white prop truck on the set, Detectives Alexandria Hancock and Marissa Poppell with the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office said in a court document released on Friday.The detectives recovered 12 revolvers; one rifle; a bandolier (a belt usually slung sash-style over the shoulder to hold ammunition); four cardboard boxes with miscellaneous ammunition; a spent blank; and one “45 Colt round.” Ms. Gutierrez-Reed — who also goes by Hannah Reed and Hannah Gutierrez — was relatively inexperienced as a head armorer. In a recent podcast she noted that she had just finished filming her first movie as head armorer in a western called “The Old Way,” starring Clint Howard and Nicolas Cage, that is set for release next year, saying, “I almost didn’t take the job because I wasn’t sure if I was ready.” Ms. Gutierrez-Reed has also come under scrutiny for reports of unexpected gun discharges on the sets of films that she has worked on..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION 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header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Her lawyers said that they wanted “to address some untruths that have been told to the media, which have falsely portrayed her and slandered her,” and said that safety was her “number one priority on set.”While some news accounts have suggested there might have been recreational shooting on the set, reports law-enforcement officials called “unconfirmed,” the lawyers said in their statement that the guns being used for the film could not have been used for such activities.“Hannah and the prop master gained control over the guns and she never witnessed anyone shoot live rounds with these guns and nor would she permit that,” the statement said. “They were locked up every night and at lunch and there’s no way a single one of them was unaccounted for or being shot by crew members.”In the week since the shooting at Bonanza Creek Ranch, which killed the movie’s director of photography, Halyna Hutchins, and wounded its director, Joel Souza, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed and the film’s assistant director, Dave Halls, have come under scrutiny, since they both handled the Colt .45 being used in the film before it was handed to Mr. Baldwin.The gun was declared “cold,” meaning it was not supposed to contain any live ammunition, according to court papers. But when it went off as Mr. Baldwin practiced drawing it, it fired a real bullet, which struck and killed Ms. Hutchins and wounded Mr. Souza, Sheriff Adan Mendoza of Santa Fe County said at a news conference Wednesday.Three former crew members on “Rust” said there were at least two accidental discharges on set on Oct. 16, days before the fatal shooting.In the lawyers’ statement, they said that Ms. Gutierrez-Reed “has never had an accidental discharge” during her career. They suggested that others had been responsible for the two accidental discharges on the “Rust” set: “The first one on this set was the prop master and the second was a stunt man after Hannah informed him his gun was hot with blanks.”“Hannah is devastated and completely beside herself over the events that have transpired,” the statement said.Nicole Sperling contributed reporting. More