Things are heating up in the legal department over the fatal shooting on the set of Rust …
For months now, we’ve been reporting on the director of photography Halyna Hutchins ‘ (pictured above left) tragic death after she was accidentally shot by Alec Baldwin with a prop gun while working on the Western film. The biggest mystery to come out of this horrific situation is how the weapon ended up with live rounds in the first place. There has been plenty of finger-pointing throughout the investigation – especially towards the 63-year-old actor, head armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed , and first assistant director Dave Halls .
But as we previously reported, Gutierrez-Reed’s attorneys have suggested that the live rounds were placed on set by someone looking to “sabotage” the production . However, to our knowledge, they have provided very little evidence backing that claim. Now it seems she is pointing fingers at one person in particular – Seth Kenney , the owner of PDQ Arm & Prop , who supplied the guns and ammo used on the production.
Related: Alec Baldwin Slams Reports That He’ s Not Cooperating With The Rust Shooting Investigation
In court documents obtained by TMZ on Wednesday, the 24-year-old filed a lawsuit against him, claiming he somehow had access to the set and knew the code to the prop safe where the guns were kept when not in use. Furthermore, Variety added that Gutierrez-Reed alleged in the suit that he falsely claimed the boxes of ammo only contained dummy rounds when in actuality it contained a mixture of dummy and live bullets.
Since Kenney and his company provided the ammunition, she feels they should then be the only ones held responsible legally for the rounds found on set that killed Hutchins. That being said, he previously denied that the live rounds came from him in an interview with Good Morning America , saying:
“It’s not a possibility that they came from PDQ or from myself personally. When we send dummy rounds out they get individually rattle tested before they get sent out. So if you have a box of 50, you’ve got to do it 50 times and then at that point you know they’re safe to sound. ”
And while Gutierrez-Reed does not name Baldwin or Halls as defendants, she also placed some blame on the two men for the death of Hutchins in the legal docs. Per TMZ , Hannah claimed that Baldwin never answered her request to schedule a cross-drawing training session and still went ahead with filming the church scene.
She then said she loaded the prop gun with what she thought were dummy rounds and handed it over to Halls, who told her he’d have it during rehearsals. According to Gutierrez-Reed, the rehearsal with Baldwin wasn’t originally on the schedule. It was protocol for her to be notified whenever the 30 Rock alum was going to be filming or practicing with the gun – but that never happened.
Within 15 minutes of her leaving the church, the assistant director shouted “cold gun” and gave Baldwin the gun. The star then started working with Hutchins to get the proper camera angle, and that is when the filmmaker was suddenly killed and director Joel Souza was injured.
In the lawsuit, Hannah argues that Alec would have known all of the safety protocols with the cross draw if he bothered to respond to her training request. Additionally, she added that she would have stopped Alec from pointing the gun at Hutchins if she were in the church at the time.
Wow. Thoughts on the latest in the Rust shooting? Let us know in the comments (below).
[Image via MEGA/WENN, Lu Chau/WENN, WENN/Avalon ]
The post < i> Rust< /i> Armorer Sues Ammunition Supplier Over Live Rounds, Shares New Details About Fatal Shooting appeared first on Perez Hilton .
