In court Friday, "Rust" director Joel Souza described the moment he was shot by actor Alec Baldwin.
Souza, who was shot in the shoulder on October 21, 2021 on the set of the Western film, recalled what he was doing in the moments right before the gun went off. Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and Souza were working to stage a close-up scene involving Baldwin and a revolver, when the gun the actor was holding discharged – killing Hutchins.
"I went inside [the church] again to see, to try to see what the angle was, there were a lot of voices," he recalled during his testimony at "Rust" armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed's trial. "I heard Alec's voice. I heard Halyna's voice, everyone sort of talking at once. I don't have a clear memory of how long I was standing behind her. I know I got up 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're loud poofs 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."
CONVICTED ‘RUST’ ASSISTANT DIRECTOR TESTIFIES ABOUT TENSE FINAL MOMENTS BEFORE FATAL SHOOTING
Souza stumbled back and saw Hutchins being lowered to the ground, but the director still couldn't make sense of what had happened. "Nothing made sense," he told the jury. "I, I remember initially thinking, ‘Had she been startled by it, and they were sitting her down . . . as a result?’ And then I, I saw the blood on her back."
The set became "very chaotic" immediately after the shooting.
"I remember them laying me down. I remember them laying her down next to me, although we were sort of facing in opposite directions. My head was this way, her head was that way. I remember a lot of panic. I still just couldn't figure out what had happened. I just I thought, ‘Was there something that had been stuck in the barrel that came out?’ but just nothing made sense."
Souza was surprised to find out how long he had laid next to Hutchins before being taken to the hospital and testified that it had felt like five minutes. He recalled Gutierrez Reed standing above him "looking distraught" and apologizing before people were "screaming" at her.
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At the hospital, Souza didn't even know he had been shot.
"I knew something got me, but they kept saying – they kept talking about this bullet. And it just could not compute for me," he said. "I just kept saying, 'You don't understand. No, no, no. This was a movie set. You know, that's not possible. You don't get it.' And they kept saying, ‘No, no, it is.’ And I just keep insisting, 'you don't understand because this is not possible. It's just not possible that there's a live round. It's not. It just can't.'"
"And then they eventually maybe grew tired of my protesting it, because they showed me the X-ray of my back and there was a very large bullet in it."
Souza's testimony answered a few important questions, according to former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani.
"Souza’s testimony was somewhat helpful for the prosecution," the president of West Coast Trial Lawyers told Fox News Digital. "He didn’t support the defense argument that the set was sloppy and unprofessional, and he testified that Gutierrez Reed was not required to be outside the church, despite her statement to law enforcement that COVID-19 protocols required her to be outside."
"[Assistant director Dave Halls'] testimony was much more important and relevant," Rahmani noted. "He told jurors that Gutierrez Reed loaded the gun, and that she conducted a safety check of the gun, but not fully. He also said that Gutierrez Reed gave the gun to Baldwin. I think prosecutors made a mistake by giving Halls a deal before trial. He has denied giving Baldwin the gun or saying it’s a cold gun, so there may be problems with his testimony. And giving him a misdemeanor offer when he admitted to being negligent doesn’t make a lot of sense."
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Gutierrez Reed is on trial for involuntary manslaughter and evidence tampering in connection with the fatal shooting of Hutchins. The armorer was 24-years-old at the time of the on-set shooting.
Prosecutors have accused the armorer of being "unprofessional and sloppy" and "negligent" on the Western film set, directly causing the death of Hutchins. The prosecution also claimed that Gutierrez-Reed was the crew member who had brought the live ammo to the set in the first place, an issue that has long plagued the two-year investigation.
Meanwhile, Gutierrez Reed's defense blamed Baldwin and the production company behind "Rust" for the fatal shooting and argued that his client had been used as a "scapegoat."
"You will hear that Hollywood actors are not allowed to point guns, real guns at other actors or crew," Jason Bowles told the jury. "It's . . . like every other safety with guns in any other place in society. You learn these rules and go into the classes. You learn these rules if you've ever owned a gun. Rule No. 1: Never point a firearm at somebody unless you intend to shoot them. And that rule was broken."
Baldwin is also facing involuntary manslaughter charges as his trial is set to begin in July.
