A court heard testimony on Thursday about how actor Alec Baldwin used his gun “as a pointing stick” and waved it around on the set of the movie where a cameraman was shot and killed.
Video viewed during armorer Hannah Gutierrez’s trial featured Baldwin, who produced the low-budget Western “Rust,” making motions with a blank-loaded handgun.
Additionally, it showed him discharging the gun just a few steps away from the camera operators, scolding the young armorer for not having additional weapons ready and encouraging her to reload his guns as soon as possible.
“One more time! One more! One more! As soon as possible! Let’s fire again!” Baldwin lets up a yell when the director clicks “cut.” “Let’s get started! C’mon,” he exclaimed. “We should have two guns and both we’re reloading.”
The video was being viewed in the New Mexico courtroom where Gutierrez is being tried for Halyna Hutchins’s involuntary manslaughter.
Cast and crew were practicing a scenario when Hutchins was hit by a shell fired from the Colt.45 that Baldwin was holding. Hutchins died as a result. The bullet also struck director Joel Souza, who subsequently made a full recovery.
How a live bullet got into the scene and into Baldwin’s gun is one of the main mysteries surrounding Hutchins’s death. Gutierrez places the burden on the ammo supplier and disputes that it was her fault.
Bryan Carpenter, a firearms expert who has worked on numerous movies, testified for the prosecution and claimed that behind-the-scenes video demonstrated a casual attitude toward gun safety on production.
He said that recordings of a performer aimlessly aiming a shotgun at onlookers while he strolled around between takes demonstrated extremely poor “muzzle discipline.”
In his capacity as the movie’s armorer, he said that Gutierrez, real name Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, ought to have disallowed such conduct and taken away the actors’ weapons in between takes.
Carpenter added that she ought not to have let Baldwin to rush her. “Rushing with firearms and telling someone to rush with firearms is not normal nor accepted,” he stated before the jury.
“In a situation like that, when you’re getting rushed to that extent, that’s when safety starts to fall by the wayside.” Baldwin is shown laying on the ground in one take, indicating to the crew with his gun how he would be firing and how he would get up.
Carpenter said, when asked if there was a problem with this in terms of gun safety, “He’s using the weapon as a pointing stick.”
Carpenter admitted under cross-examination that it could be difficult for Gutierrez to install an A-list actor like Baldwin in his position, given that he was a young armorer just getting started in the film industry.
But that was part of the work, he replied. “If you don’t think you can accomplish it, you should
In addition to the additional accusation of tampering with evidence regarding the purported disposal of cocaine in the immediate aftermath of the incident, Gutierrez denies involuntary manslaughter.
It is anticipated that Baldwin will go on trial in July for involuntary manslaughter, a charge he also disputes.
