Photo: Jae C Hong/AP/Shutterstock
RustarmorerHannah Gutierrez-Reedis defending her work on the film after a fatal shooting occurred on set Oct. 21, insisting she does not know how a live round made its way into the prop gunAlec Baldwinused when he accidentallyshot and killedcinematographerHalyna Hutchins.
Gutierrez-Reed, 24, said through her attorney Jason Bowles in a statement shared with PEOPLE Thursday that she did not think live bullets would end up on theRustset “in a million years,” and she did not know how they got there.
“Hannah Gutierrez-Reed would like to add a few points to the continuing narrative on the tragic events surrounding the shooting on theRustset,” Bowles stated. “First, Hannah was incredibly safety conscious and took her job very seriously from the moment she started on Oct. 4.”
He added, “She did firearms training for the actors as well as Mr. Baldwin, she fought for more training days and she regularly emphasized to never point a firearm at a person. Never in a million years did Hannah think that live rounds could have been in the ‘dummy’ Round box. Who put those in there and why is the central question.”
Alec Baldwin; Halyna Hutchins.Jesse Grant/Getty; Anthony Harvey/Getty Images
In the statement shared with PEOPLE, Bowles said Gutierrez-Reed “kept guns locked up, including throughout lunch” on the day Hutchins was shot and killed. “She instructed her department to watch the cart containing the guns when she was pulled away for her other duties or on a lunch break,” Bowles added.
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Gutierrez-Reed previouslybroke her silenceabout the shooting on set Friday, saying in a statement via her lawyers that “untruths that have been told to the media,” and that she was “devastated and completely beside herself over the events that have transpired.”
Her attorneys claimed Gutierrez-Reed had “no idea where the live rounds came from” and said she was under pressure on the set from working two jobs as both armorer and props assistant.
Alec Baldwin.Mark Sagliocco/Getty
Gutierrez-Reedtold deputiesthat she had checked the rounds inside the firearm Baldwin used the day of the shooting to make sure the gun was loaded with “dummies,” not real bullets, and that she locked up the guns in a safe on the prop truck,according to the search warrantaffidavit. She also said no live ammunition was ever kept on theRustset.
“No, obviously it isn’t,” Sheriff Adan Mendoza said. “That was a live round that struck and killed Ms. Hutchins so that’s not an accurate statement as far as I’m concerned.”
Mendoza said during an Oct. 27press conferencethat investigators had discovered “500 rounds of ammunition” on the film set, which included “a mix of blanks, dummy rounds and what we are suspecting are live rounds.”
Filming onRusthas been halted and an investigation into the Oct. 21 incident is ongoing. No charges have been filed at this time.
source: people.com
