Rust shooting trial live: Opening arguments for armorer who handed Alec Baldwin gun

The prosecution has called its second witness, former Santa Fe County Sheriff’s deputy Tim Benavidez.

Mr Benavidez was the office’s shift commander on the day cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot on the set of the movie “Rust.”

He told the court that only three deputies were on the scene on the day of the shooting, which made gathering witness testimony difficult.

Footage from his bodycam was then shown to the court.

The movie crew can be heard on video describing the “props guy” as having “green and purple hair.”

The crew then described that Alec Baldwin was on the set and the officer could be heard talking to the actor, telling him he “knew” who he was.

“I was the one with the gun. What do you need?” Baldwin told him.

The officer said that there were three officers at the scene and a “couple of hundred” people were on the set. He said that he “corralled” around 10 people who had been in the area of the shooting.

Sante Fe Officer Nicholas LaFleur said he spoke to the dispatcher to give them an update on the conditions of the two victims who had been shot on the set.

He can be heard on the video, which cannot be seen outside of the courtroom, describing the victims and saying that a woman has been shot.

The officer then described putting a breathing mask over Halyna Hutchins’s face, while a woman can be heard saying “Deep breaths Halyna, good girl, deep breaths.”

He could be heard saying that she had been hit by a “through and through.”

“She had been shot and it had gone through her and the male that was there had been hit in the arm and shoulder area,” he told the jury.

Then on Thursday 20 April, weeks before the trial was due to begin, Baldwin’s attorneys announced a charge of involuntary manslaughter had been dismissed.

Rust armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was also facing a charge of involuntary manslaughter, while first assistant director David Halls has agreed to plead guilty to the charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon.

After the lunch break prosecutors again attempted to show a video taken after the fatal shooting.

The video shows Sante Fe Officer Nicholas LaFleur driving up to the church on the Rust set after the shooting took place.

Officer LaFleur told the court that he had grabbed a trauma kit and medical supplies from his truck after arriving on the scene where he requested an “airflight” for the two victims.

The playing of the video has been hit by a string of technical difficulties with prosecutors forced to swap computers to try and get it to play in the courtroom.

The trial is set to resume after the lunch break.

The Santa Fe DA said that Mr Baldwin and Ms Gutierrez-Reed would be “charged in the alternative” with two counts of manslaughter.

This means that a “jury would decide not simply if they were guilty, but under which definition of involuntary manslaughter they were guilty,” the DA said in a statement.

Hutchins died after being struck by a live bullet at Bonanza Creek Ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe, New Mexico, on 21 October 2021. Joel Souza, the director of the film Rust, was also shot and injured but survived the incident.

“Rust” armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed’s involuntary manslaughter trial has taken a short recess.

Prior to the break, the prosecution called its first witness, Santa Fe police officer Nicholas LeFleur.