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Rust director Joel Souza took the stand right now within the trial of armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, telling the court docket that he didn’t see who gave Alec Baldwin the firearm within the deadly taking pictures incident.
“I didn’t see anybody give it to him,” Souza stated, emphasizing that there was “an enormous amount going on” within the New Mexico church set on the time.
On Thursday, the film’s first assistant director David Halls testified that it was Gutierrez-Reed who gave Baldwin the gun, contradicting numerous different witnesses, together with Alec Baldwin’s preliminary assertion to police.
Gutierrez-Reed is on trial on prices of manslaughter and tampering with proof. On Oct. 21, 2021, Baldwin was pointing the gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins when it went off. The bullet struck and killed her, and wounded Souza. Baldwin was indicted on an involuntary manslaughter cost and is scheduled to go to trial in July.
In his testimony, Souza recalled the moments of disbelief about what had occurred.
Souza stated that within the time simply earlier than the taking pictures, he went contained in the church “to try to see what the angle was. There were a lot of voices. I heard Alec’s voice. I heard Halyna’s voice. Everyone is sort of talking at once.”
The bullet struck Hutchins after which Souza.
“I don’t have a clear memory of how long I was standing behind her,” he stated. “I know I got a behind her to try to see on the monitor, and there was an incredibly loud bang, that was not like the half and quarter loads you hear on a set. Those are sort of, they are loud proofs and pops. This was deafening. And it felt like somebody had taken a baseball bat to my shoulder. I remember that distinctly, and sort of stumbling back and shouting, I don’t remember exactly what I said.”
Souza stated that he noticed Hutchins, who was being lowered to the bottom. “People had her sort of by their side. And I still didn’t quite know what had happened. Nothing made sense. I remember initially thinking that she’d been startled by it, and they were sitting her down as a result. And then I I saw the blood on her back.”
He stated that the scene then was “very chaotic. I remember them laying me down. I remember them laying her down next to me.” He stated that there was “a lot of panic. I still just couldn’t figure out what had happened. I thought, ‘Was there something stuck in the barrel that came out?’ But just nothing made sense.”
He stated that he recalled trying up and recognizing Gutierrez-Reed, who was standing with a couple of different individuals. “She looked distraught. And I remember her saying, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry Joel.’ And I remember somebody just screaming at her and they just ushered her out.”
He stated that he remembered trying over at Hutchins “and her looking back at me and she had the biggest brown eyes I had ever seen.” He stated that he was placed on “some kind of stretcher” and informed that he could be taken to the hospital. “I kept begging them to take me where she was,” he stated. “But they said they couldn’t and that they would later.”
He was taken to a hospital in Santa Fe. He stated that it took some time for him to understand that he had been shot by a bullet. “It just could not compute for me. I just kept saying, ‘You don’t understand. No, no, no. This is a movie set. That’s not possible….It’s just not possible there’s a live round.”
“They eventually grew tired of me protesting about it and they showed me the X-ray of my back and there was a very large bullet.”
Souza stated that he didn’t know if Gutierrez-Reed was within the church on the time the gun went off, however that he would count on that she could be there. “The armorer would be where the gun is,” he stated.