On Wednesday, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the armorer on the set of “Rust” filed a lawsuit against Seth Kenney, the man who supplied ammunition to the production, alleging that he offered a mix of dummy rounds and live bullets, resulting in the accident that killed the film’s cinematographer.
In her lawsuit, her attorneys outlined her version of events after actor Alec Baldwin fired a shot that killed Halyna Hutchins and injured Joel Souza on Oct. 21.
“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 suit 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.”
According to investigators, Kenney, the owner of PDQ Arm & Prop in Albuquerque, described how dummy rounds may have become mixed up with live rounds that had the Starline Brass logo because they would have resembled a dummy round.
Kenney later contradicted that remark in an interview with ABC News, bluntly denying that he was the source of the live rounds.
“It’s not a possibility that they came from PDQ or from myself personally,” he said, saying that rounds are individually rattle-tested before being sent out.
According to the lawsuit, Kenney is accused of attempting to blame Gutierrez Reed for the live rounds.
The Lawsuit also alleges that “Seth took it upon himself to essentially investigate this matter for the Sheriff’s Office and insert himself into this matter and attempt to implicate Hannah.”
Attorneys for Gutierrez Reed have previously claimed that someone may have sabotaged the set, but have provided little evidence in support of that claim.
Investigators are continuing to work with the Santa Fe County Sheriff‘s Office to determine how the live rounds made it onto the set.
