'Rust' Armorer Sues Ammo Supplier Alleging He Mixed Dummy and Live Rounds
The armorer's blaming the ammunition supplier over the death of cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins.
Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the armorer on the set of Rust, has filed a lawsuit against the man who supplied the ammunition to the crew, claiming he mixed live and dummy rounds, which Reed alleges subsequently led to the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
Reed filed legal documents in New Mexico court on Wednesday and sued Seth Kenney and his Albuquerque-based company, PDQ Arm and Prop, LLC, over allegations he "distributed and sold prop ammunition which presented as unreasonable risk of injury, without warning of the risks that could have been avoided had the risks been disclosed."
In the legal documents, obtained by ET, Reed claims Kenney "distributed boxes of ammunition purporting to contain dummy rounds, but which contained a mix of dummy and live ammunition to the Rust production."
Kenney, during an appearance on Good Morning America last month, said "it's not a possibility" that the live round that killed Hutchins and wounded Souza "came from PDQ or from myself personally."
Reed, however, claims she and the rest of the crew "relied on the Defendants' misrepresentation that they provided only dummy ammunition" and that in doing so, "Defendants created a dangerous condition on the movie set, unbeknownst to Hannah Gutierrez Reed, which caused a foreseeable risk of injury to numerous people."
Hutchins died in October after a prop gun was discharged on the film's set. Alec Baldwin was holding the gun at the time and an investigation is underway as to what exactly happened. Baldwin has since publicly stated that he did not pull the trigger on the prop gun. The film's director, Joel Souza, was also wounded in the shooting.
In her lawsuit, Reed claims that the props manager "had an accidental/negligent discharge of a weapon on set, firing a blank round at her foot" some five days prior to Hutchins' fatal shooting. Reed's lawsuit claims this incident led to a heated text message exchange with Kenney, who she accuses of wanting to "sweep this security incident under the rug."
The investigation into the shooting remains ongoing and, in addition to a search warrant for Baldwin's phone, a lawsuit has been filed against Baldwin and others in connection to the fatal event.
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