Rust armourer suggests someone may have put live bullet in gun before Alec Baldwin shooting

The woman in charge of weapons on the set of Rust where actor Alec Baldwin fatally shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins says someone may have put a live bullet into the gun.

Armourer Hannah Gutierrez Reed blamed producers for unsafe working conditions in a statement released through her lawyers and said she had inspected the gun Mr Baldwin shot Ms Hutchins with and does not know how a live bullet came to be in the weapon.

“Who put those in there and why is the central question,” her lawyer Jason Bowles said.

“Hannah kept guns locked up, including throughout lunch on the day in question, and she instructed her department to watch the cart containing the guns when she was pulled away for her other duties or on a lunch break.”

“Hannah did everything in her power to ensure a safe set. She inspected the rounds that she loaded into the firearms that day. She always inspected the rounds," the statement continued.

She stated she had inspected the rounds before handing the firearm to assistant director David Halls “by spinning the cylinder and showing him all of the rounds and then handing him the firearm.”

“No one could have anticipated or thought that someone would introduce live rounds into this set,” Gutierrez Reed’s statement said.

Ms Gutierrez Reed said she had done firearms training for the actors including Mr Baldwin and had "fought for more training days and she regularly emphasised to never point a firearm at a person".

On October 29, attorneys for Hannah Gutierrez Reed said she did not know where the live rounds found there came from.

Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza has said there was “some complacency” in how weapons were handled on the set of Rust.

Investigators initially found 500 rounds of ammunition - a mix of blanks, dummy rounds and what appeared to be live rounds.

Industry experts have said live rounds should never be on set.

Additional ammunition, a dozen revolvers and a rifle also were seized in the search of a white truck used for storing props including firearms, according to an inventory list filed on Friday in court.