Body cam footage shows ‘Rust’ armourer’s interview in the immediate aftermath of the fatal shooting

‘Welcome to the worst day of my life,’ the 24-year-old armourer can be heard saying after the fatal shooting on the Western set

A trove of new documents and bodycam footage has been released by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office that reveal new details of the tragic day that actor and producer Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins while on the set for a Western movie last October.

Within this footage, the officers who responded to the New Mexico set can be seen interviewing the film’s armourer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who breaks down during an interview and calls herself a “f****** failure”, just a few moments after the 30 Rock actor had been rehearsing a scene that led to the fatal shooting of the cinematographer and wounding of the director, Joel Souza.

In the footage, you can hear the responding officers at the New Mexico ranch ask the 24-year-old if she’s the film’s armourer, which a clearly shaken Reed responds with: “I am, or at least I was.”

“Welcome to the worst day of my life,” she continues.

The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on Monday that they were releasing their interviews conducted with key witnesses and bodycam footage from the 21 October shooting at Bonanza Creek Ranch after several requests were made by media outlets to have the contents made public.

“The sheriff’s office is releasing all files associated with our ongoing investigation,” Sheriff Adan Mendoza said in a statement.

The release of the documents and bodycam footage arrives just days after a New Mexico agency handed a sharp rebuke of the managers behind the Rust production and delivered a maximum fine of $136,793 for violating safety protocols in the incident that led to the wounding of Mr Souza and the death of Hutchins.

The 24-year-old armourer can be seen in the bodycam footage, with a female police officer, being escorted to the restroom, where she then asks if she can get away from the rest of the crew and debrief in the back of one of the police cars. “I just want to get the f*** out of here and never show my face in this industry again,” she says.

Ms Gutierrez-Reed, who was trained as an armourer by her father, Thall Reed, continues in the footage to relay how desperately shaken she is from the incident on the set, saying at one point: “I’m the only female armourer in the game and I just f***ked up my whole entire career.”

“[I’m] a f***ing failure,” she can be heard saying as the officers continue to debrief her.

In the months since the incident, the Rust armourer has sued the weapons provider, Seth Kenny, as she alleges that he provided a mismarked box of ammunition on the set and delivered a box of live rounds instead of the dummy ones she believed to be accepting.

This aerial photo shows the Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on 23 October 2021. (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Mr Kenny has denied these allegations.

While speaking to ABC News in December, the 24-year-old’s father told the network that he had full faith in the sheriff’s department for “getting to the bottom” of the fatal shooting, believing that his daughter’s name would soon be cleared.

“I’m not worried about that at all,” he said.

In the months after the fall incident on the set of Rust, reports of complaints from the crew working on the Western set have surfaced, with some claiming that weapons specialists were not allowed to make decisions about additional safety training.

Rust Movie Productions, however, has indicated that it will dispute these findings.

Baldwin, who has similarly denied any liability or wrongdoing in the shooting that left 42–year-old Hutchins dead, is being sued by the cinematographer’s family for wrongful death.

The Santa Fe County Sheriff has said that the investigation into the fatal shooting that occurred more than six months ago is still missing “various components”, namely the results from the ballistics and forensic analysis from the FBI and the fingerprint and DNA studies.

“Once these investigative components are provided to the sheriff’s office, we will be able to complete the investigation to forward it to the Santa Fe district attorney for review,” Sheriff Mendoza said in a prepared statement.