Rust trial testimony is getting genuinely, upsettingly intense

The trial of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed—armorer on the low budget Western Rust, and now facing charges of involuntary manslaughter for the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the film’s set—reached what appeared to be a new plateau of intensity today, when the movie’s first assistant director, Dave Halls, took the stand as a witness. Halls is, so far, the only person to have faced any legal repercussions for Hutchins’ death, having received six months of probation and a $500 fine after pleading guilty to negligent use of a deadly weapon; today, he broke down in tears on the stand as he described the events of the cinematographers’ death.

Per Variety, Halls—who has now retired from the industry, and whose job on the film’s set included overall responsibility for safety—denied allegations that he was the person who handed the gun to Alec Baldwin on the day of the shooting, saying that, while he admitted to failing to fully check the weapon for live rounds, he never actually handled the weapon. He testified that he was three feet away from Hutchins when the weapon went off, and heard her say “I can’t feel my legs” before EMTs arrived.

Halls also painted a slightly odd picture of Gutierrez-Reed, simultaneously “diligent,” “confident,” and “knowledgeable,” while also indicating her as the direct cause of Hutchins’ death; this lines up roughly with the prosecution strategy in the case, which has struggled at times to reconcile Gutierrez-Reed’s responsibility for the events of the shooting with the defense’s own assertions that she was a relatively powerless member of the crew, being pushed around and bullied away from properly doing her job by aggressive stars and producers.

(That argument was also at the crux of state expert Bryan Carpenter’s testimony on Thursday; while acknowledging defense assertions that a gun-heavy production such as Rust should have had two armorers on set, rather than the part-time position Gutierrez-Reed was working—and that Baldwin was behaving unsafely with a gun in video footage shown during the trial—Carpenter asserted that, ultimately, gun safety on the set was her responsibility. “If that is not something you feel capable of doing, you should never step into the position of doing it,” Carpenter said, after watching a video clip in which Gutierrez-Reed appears to try adjusting on-set behavior without directly confronting Baldwin. “You have to be prepared to go home.”)

Gutierrez-Reed’s trial is expected to wrap up on March 8. Baldwin’s own pending trial on similar charges will take place later this year.