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In the opening statements of the civil trial that began on Wednesday, an attorney for Vanessa Bryant said that Los Angeles County officials had used Kobe Bryant’s death “for a laugh” by disseminating images taken at the scene of his helicopter accident.
Bryant claims that Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and firefighters violated her right to privacy by taking and distributing graphic pictures taken at the scene of the crash that killed her husband, Kobe Bryant, their daughter Gianna, 13, and seven others in 2020.
Bryant’s lawyer Luis Li reportedly said in his opening statement that the photographs were taken on cellphones and spread as “visual gossip” in nonprofessional home situations. As Li argued his case, Bryant wiped away tears.
“January 26, 2020 was the worst day of Vanessa Bryant’s life,” Li said in a Los Angeles U.S. District Court room. “The county made it much worse. They poured salt in an open wound and rubbed it in. …
The deputies who were using them were also sharing them for their video game enjoyment. They were forwarded numerous times to recipients who had zero need to receive them.
In court, county attorney Mira Hashmall defended the use of images by saying they were useful to emergency personnel.
A jury of 10 people, including a nun, a TV producer, and a college student, was selected earlier on Wednesday, and they all presented their cases. Potential jurors were reportedly eliminated from the pool after declaring their support for Kobe Bryant, Vanessa Bryant, or Los Angeles Sheriff Alex Villanueva .
In 2020, Villanueva said that employees in his department had engaged in private photo sharing. In March of that year, he expressed satisfaction that eight of the deputies who had taken images had disposed of them.
In 2020, Villanueva told NBC4 that erasing the photographs was his top priority. We tracked down the culpable deputies, who voluntarily admitted taking and erasing the photos during an in-person interview at the station. And that makes us happy for everyone involved.
The Associated Press reports that Li presented jurors with bar surveillance film showing an off-duty cop showing photos from the incident to a bartender who shook his head. Later, at a dinner two weeks later, he told the jury that 30 people had seen the photos since they had been documented as being shared by the firefighters.
Bryant claims in the complaint that “the worst thing that has ever occurred to me, the worst thing that could happen to any mother or spouse, was made worse by these officers and firefighters.” To think that the people whose job it is to keep us safe handled Kobe and Gianna with such callous indifference is a source of unending pain for me.
“For the rest of my life, one of two things will happen: either close-up photos of my husband’s and daughter’s bodies will go viral online, or I will continue to live in fear of that happening.”
On Wednesday, Hashmall claimed that the photographs still hadn’t made their way online, praising the self-control shown by the first responders who had taken precautions to protect themselves.
“They’re not online,” Hashmall said. “They’re not in the media. They’ve never even been seen by the plaintiffs themselves. That is not an accident. That is a function of how diligent they were.”
She also spoke to the deputy who had shown the photo to the bartender, whom she said was a longtime friend.
“He pulled out his phone, and that should not have happened,” she said. “In a lapse, in a moment of weakness, he showed those photos, and he has regretted it every day of his life.”
Chris Chester is a plaintiff as well, as his wife Sarah and daughter Payton, then 13 years old, were killed in the accident. His attorney, Jerome Jackson, told USA Today that a horrific image of Sarah’s body split down the middle at the waist had been widely circulated.
According to USA Today, Jackson remarked, “That’s what they photographed,” Jackson said, per USA Today. “That’s what they shared. That’s what they laughed at.”
Kobe Bryant’s agent, personal friend, and godfather Rob Pelinka is now the general manager of the Los Angeles Lakers. He entered the stand on Wednesday and claimed that the sharing of the photographs has “added so much more grief,” according to USA Today.
For Hasmhall, the survivors’ sorrow stemmed from the victims’ deaths, not the pictures.
“There is no doubt these families have suffered,” she said, per AP. “It’s unspeakable. But this case is not about the loss from the crash. It’s about the pictures.”
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