{"id":29804,"date":"2024-03-02T20:36:03","date_gmt":"2024-03-02T15:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/rust-armorer-faced-tearful-testimony-and-claims-of-unprofessional-handling-of-guns-in-first-week-of-trial\/"},"modified":"2024-03-02T20:36:03","modified_gmt":"2024-03-02T15:06:03","slug":"rust-armorer-faced-tearful-testimony-and-claims-of-unprofessional-handling-of-guns-in-first-week-of-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/rust-armorer-faced-tearful-testimony-and-claims-of-unprofessional-handling-of-guns-in-first-week-of-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Rust\u2019 armorer faced tearful testimony and claims of \u2018unprofessional\u2019 handling of guns in first week of trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ad_1]\n<\/p>\n

\n

Here\u2019s a look at the trial\u2019s first week. <\/p>\n

Emotional testimony<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Halls took the stand on Thursday and told jurors, \u201cMy thought was that a blank round had been loaded.\u201d He began to cry as he recounted being one of the first to approach Hutchins. \u201cShe said, \u2018I can\u2019t feel my legs.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Halls, who also served as the film\u2019s safety coordinator, pleaded no contest to negligent use of a deadly weapon last year and as part of a plea deal was sentenced to six months of unsupervised probation. Halls\u2019 testimony marks the first time he spoke publicly about what happened on the set. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to me that the truth be known, that Halyna\u2019s husband, son, family know the truth of what happened,\u201d he said when prosecutor Kari T. Morrissey asked him why he agreed to testify.<\/p>\n

When Morrissey questioned Halls on Gutierrez-Reed\u2019s on-set conduct with the weapons, he said that he never witnessed Gutierrez-Reed handle herself in an \u201cimproper\u201d manner.<\/p>\n

But Halls got emotional when he discussed the moments before the fatal shooting. Halls said he was the one who handed the gun to Baldwin during the rehearsal on set and declared the gun \u201ccold\u201d \u2014 meaning there were no rounds of live ammunition inside. Halls said during his testimony that he should have checked the gun more thoroughly and admitted that he \u201cdid an improper check of that firearm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Halls went on to say that he did not recall seeing Gutierrez-Reed spin the entire cylinder around to ensure all bullets were dummy rounds. While wiping away tears he said, \u201cI let a safety check pass.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"alex<\/picture>
Alec Baldwin practicing a scene on the set of \u201cRust\u201d in Santa Fe, N.M.<\/span>Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office \/ EYEPRESS via Reuters <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mystery around live bullets<\/h2>\n

Sarah Zachry, the film\u2019s prop master and Gutierrez-Reed\u2019s boss, said from the witness stand Friday that she only brought one box of dummy rounds to the \u201cRust\u201d set and didn\u2019t know who brought the live rounds that authorities found on set following the incident.<\/p>\n

In the moments after the shooting, Zachry admitted that she took the live rounds out of the gun and \u201cthrew them away in a state of shock and panic. It was a reactive decision.\u201d She said she told investigators about this one month after the shooting.<\/p>\n

Zachry also spoke about how she was not satisfied with Gutierrez-Reed during production and talked with colleagues about wanting to fire her at one point. Defense attorney Jason Bowles said in his opening statements that his client served as both armorer and a props assistant, which distracted her from being able to sufficiently oversee the weapons during filming.<\/p>\n

Director Joel Souza recounts being shot<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Joel Souza, the director on the set, said that after the shooting \u201cnothing made sense.\u201d Souza, who was shot by the same bullet that killed Hutchins, said he remembered looking up at Gutierrez-Reed and hearing her repeatedly say, \u201cI\u2019m sorry, I\u2019m sorry, Joel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Souza described the feeling of being shot as though someone had \u201ctaken a baseball bat to my shoulder.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he did not realize he had been injured by a live round of ammunition, and when medical personnel informed him of that at the hospital, \u201cIt could not compute for me,\u201d Souza said.<\/p>\n

During cross-examination by Gutierrez-Reed\u2019s attorney, Souza said he recalled Halls declaring the gun was \u201ccold\u201d on set.<\/p>\n

\u2018Sloppy\u2019 and \u2018unprofessional\u2019<\/h2>\n

During opening statements, special prosecutor Jason Lewis called Gutierrez-Reed\u2019s behavior on the \u201cRust\u201d set \u201csloppy\u201d and \u201cunprofessional.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that it was the negligent acts and failures of the defendant … that contributed to Ms. Hutchins\u2019 death,\u201d Lewis said.<\/p>\n

There was testimony from those on set who said Gutierrez-Reed failed to create a safe film set. Ross Addiego, a dolly grip, described to the jury a day on the New Mexico set when there were two accidental discharges in the course of one hour. Addiego said accidental firearm discharges are \u201cnot common.\u201d<\/p>\n

At one point, Addiego said that Guiterrez-Reed was not \u201cas serious or professional as I\u2019m accustomed to.\u201d He said that guns and ammunition that should be \u201cunder lock and keys\u201d would be left unattended on a prop cart. He said he voiced his concerns about the set\u2019s safety with Halls and that \u201cMr. Halls ignored me and walked away.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Ziello, who worked as a grip on set, told Morrissey that he came across an unmanned prop cart on set and that \u201cit seemed wrong. Anyone could have done anything to those weapons.\u201d Ziello said he never reported his concerns.<\/p>\n

Gutierrez-Reed calls herself \u2018a failure\u2019 in bodycam video<\/strong><\/h2>\n

During several days of the trial, various pieces of bodycam footage from the day of the deadly shooting were played for the jury. In one clip, Gutierrez-Reed was heard in the aftermath of the shooting while sitting in the back of a police car saying, \u201cI just want to get the f— out of here and never show my face in this industry again.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also said, \u201cI\u2019m a f—ing failure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly after the incident, Gutierrez-Reed was taken in for questioning. In footage from the interrogation, she can be heard telling the sheriff investigator, \u201cIt\u2019s my job to check the barrel\u201d of the gun. She is also heard referencing Brandon Lee, an actor who was killed on the 1993 film set of \u201cThe Crow.\u201d He died after a firearm malfunctioned while filming a scene on set.<\/p>\n

As she continues to be questioned by the sheriff investigator, Gutierrez-Reed is heard in the footage saying that although she remembered shaking all of the rounds to make sure they were dummy rounds, \u201cI wish I would have checked [the gun] more.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a second round of questioning from the day of the shooting, played for jurors, Gutierrez-Reed admits that she did not have much official training and that most of her job opportunities had come directly from her stepfather, Thell Reed, a famous Hollywood armorer. Gutierrez-Reed also told the sheriff investigator that \u201cRust\u201d was only her second job in the film industry.<\/p>\n

Lucien \u201cLuke\u201d Haag, a forensic science services expert, told jurors Tuesday that he examined the firearm that Baldwin was holding during the rehearsal. He testified that he had reviewed the FBI\u2019s ballistics reports on the revolver and also tested the gun himself. Haag determined that the firearm was in \u201cproper working order\u201d and that it was \u201cnot modified\u201d in any way. He told prosecutors that Baldwin would have had to have pulled the trigger for it to fire.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear if Gutierrez-Reed will take the stand in her own defense during the trial. When asked by NBC News, her attorney would not confirm.<\/p>\n

The trial will resume Monday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n[ad_2]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ad_1] Here\u2019s a look at the trial\u2019s first week. Emotional testimony Halls took the stand on Thursday and told jurors, \u201cMy thought was that a blank round had been loaded.\u201d He began to cry as he recounted being one of the first to approach Hutchins. \u201cShe said, \u2018I can\u2019t feel my legs.\u2019\u201d Halls, who also …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29804"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}