Alec Baldwin shooting may have been sabotage, says Rust armourer’s lawyer
- A ‘disgruntled’ person on set could have placed real bullets in a box of dummy rounds, the lawyer for Hannah Gutierrez-Reed suggested in a television interview
- He said his client had checked the gun before giving it to the assistant director who handed the firearm to Baldwin right before the fatal shooting
A lawyer for the armourer who oversaw weapons used on the “Rust” movie set suggested Wednesday that someone deliberately put a live round into the gun used by Alec Baldwin when he accidentally shot dead a cinematographer.
Jason Bowles said his client, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, had pulled ammunition from a box that she believed contained only dummy rounds that were incapable of firing. He said he thought it was possible that someone purposely placed real bullets, which look similar to dummies, into the box.
“We’re afraid that could have been what happened here, that somebody intended to sabotage this set with a live round intentionally placed in a box of dummies,” Bowles said on ABC television’s “Good Morning America.”
“We’re not saying anybody had any intent there was going to be a tragedy of homicide,” he added, “but they wanted to do something to cause a safety incident on set. That’s what we believe happened.”
A spokeswoman for producers Rust Movie Productions had no comment on Bowles’ remarks. The company has said it is investigating the incident and had received no official complaints about safety on the set in Santa Fe, New Mexico.