More Damning Information About Rust Armorer Hannah Reed Gutierrez - Consistent Incompetence

The 24-year-old armorer who worked on Rust gave a child actress a gun without checking it on a previous film set, two production sources who worked with her said.

The two sources told The Daily Beast that Hannah Gutierrez-Reed had allegedly given an 11-year-old actress a gun without checking it properly while on the set of the Nicholas Cage film, The Old Way.

'There were a couple times she was loading the blanks and doing it in a fashion that we thought was unsafe,' one of the sources said.

'She was a bit careless with the guns, waving it around every now and again.'

A search warrant released Friday said that Gutierrez-Reed laid out three prop guns on a cart outside the filming location, and first assistant director Dave Halls grabbed the gun from the cart and brought it inside to Alec Baldwin, unaware that it was loaded with live rounds.

'Cold gun!' shouted Halls before handing the gun to Baldwin, using the phrase to signal to cast and crew that the gun was safe to fire for the scene, the warrant said.

Seconds later, filming a scene inside an Old West-style church, Baldwin apparently aimed towards the camera and pulled the trigger, accidentally killing Halyna Hutchins as she filmed him, and injuring director Joel Souza, who stood behind her

Two crew members said that Hannah Gutierrez, 24, who was the lead armorer on the set of "Rust," mishandled weapons on a previous film project.

Stu Brumbaugh, the key grip on "The Old Way," told CNN that Gutierrez handled guns on the set of that project in a reckless manner and that he urged the film's assistant director to fire her.

"There's a universal way to handle weapons on set and immediately red flags went up when I worked with Hannah," Brumbaugh said. "This is why I asked for her dismissal."
"This is why people get injured because of rookie mistakes," he said.

Brumbaugh cited an incident in which Gutierrez fired a gun near the film's star Nicolas Cage without warning.

"Make an announcement! You just blew my f***ing eardrums out!" Cage screamed in response and then walked off set angrily, according to Brumbaugh.

"She was talking to the stunt coordinator, and she just fired off a round, it sounded [like she fired] at the ground, and that's when Nick really laid into her. That's when I said she needs to be let go, she's the most inexperienced armorer I had ever worked with. I have no idea why she wasn't let go."