Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who worked as the armorer on the movie Rust has filed a lawsuit against the ammunition supplier over the fatal on-set shooting.
The lawsuit blames Seth Kenney and his company PDQ Arm & Prop for including live bullets in a box of dummy rounds and provides new details about the investigation into the shooting. It says that investigators recovered “seven live rounds distributed inside the ammo box, on the ammo cart, and in the bandoliers.”
“Defendants distributed boxes of ammunition purporting to contain dummy rounds, but which contained a mix of dummy and live ammunition to the Rust production,” the lawsuit states. “Hannah and the entire Rust movie crew relied on the Defendants’ misrepresentation that they provided only dummy ammunition. In so doing, Defendants created a dangerous condition on the movie set, unbeknownst to Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, which caused a foreseeable risk of injury to numerous people.”
The lawsuit also accuses Kenney of inserting himself into the investigation and trying to cast blame on Gutierrez-Reed for the fatal accident.
Kenney has not responded to the lawsuit but has previously claimed his company did not provide any rounds of live ammunition to the set of Rust.
Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed when a prop gun being handled by Alec Baldwin discharged while he was rehearsing a scene. Director Joel Souza was also injured in the shooting.
Gutierrez-Reed is also facing a lawsuit from another crew member, accusing her, Baldwin, assistant director Dave Halls, and the film’s producers of negligence.
