Whereas Vanessa Bryant’s attorneys accused first responders of ‘exploiting’ Kobe Bryant’s demise by taking ‘memento’ pictures, the NBA legend’s widow reportedly broke down in courtroom.
“January 26, 2020, was and at all times would be the worst day of Vanessa Bryant’s life,” mentioned Luis Li, the lawyer for Kobe Bryant’s widow, on Wednesday (Aug. 10), the primary day of the trial stemming from Vanessa’s invasion of privateness lawsuit towards Los Angeles County. Vanessa, 40, quietly sobbed as Li described how the county’s sheriff and hearth division took and shared pictures of a lifeless Kobe and Gianna Bryant on the scene of their deadly helicopter crash. “County staff exploited the accident,” mentioned Li, based on Rolling Stone. “They took and shared footage of Kobe and Gianna as souvenirs. …They poured salt in an unhealable wound.”
Li alleged that first responders “walked across the wreckage and took footage of damaged our bodies from the helicopter crash. They took close-ups of limbs, of burnt flesh. It shocks the conscience.” Bryant’s lawyer additionally acknowledged that a whistleblower working on the Baja California Bar & Grill in Norwalk was disturbed by Deputy Joey Cruz’s actions that day that he filed a proper grievance with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Workplace. The grievance claimed the deputy was “exhibiting footage of [Kobe’s] decapitated physique.”
As a part of Li’s opening assertion, he confirmed jurors a video of Deputy Cruz seated on the bar and holding up his mobile phone to a bartender. The bartender reportedly visibly recoiled after seeing what was on the mobile phone earlier than strolling away. This case is about accountability. We’re going to show to you that county staff took footage and shared them broadly,” mentioned Li. “Each single day for the reason that county did what it did, Mrs. Bryant … [has] the chance, have the concern, have the anxiousness, have the fear that they could need to re-live the lack of their members of the family in probably the most excruciating means.”
Vanessa Bryant sued the county eight months after the accident, claiming she suffered emotional misery on the considered strangers “gawking” at grisly photos of her late husband and their lifeless 13-year-old-daughter. “The gratuitous photos quickly grew to become talked about inside the division, as deputies displayed them to colleagues in settings that had nothing to do with investigating the accident,” she alleged in her courtroom paperwork, per Rolling Stone. “One deputy even used his pictures of the victims to attempt to impress a lady at a bar, bragging about how he had been on the crash website.”
U.S. District Choose John Walter consolidated Vanessa’s lawsuit with the same one filed by Chris Chester, who misplaced his spouse, Sarah, and their 13-year-old daughter, Payton, within the crash that killed 9 individuals.
Attorneys for LA Nation argued that Deputy Cruz was new on the job when the crash occurred and that he regrets his actions. The attorneys additionally argued that Bryant’s privateness wasn’t violated as a result of the pictures weren’t leaked.
“The county continues to specific its deepest sympathies for the households that suffered this horrible loss,” County lawyer Mira Hashmall mentioned in an announcement to Rolling Stone. “The county has additionally labored tirelessly for 2 and half years to ensure its website pictures of the crash have been by no means publicly disseminated. The proof exhibits they by no means have been. And that's truth, not hypothesis.”