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Vanessa Bryant is one step closer to finding justice for the alleged photos first responders of Los Angeles County took at the helicopter crash site where Kobe Bryant, 13-year-old daughter Gianna Bryant, 13-year-old Payton Chester, Sarah Chester, 46, 14-year-old Alyssa Altobelli, Keri Altobelli, 46, John Altobelli, 56, Christina Mauser, 38, and pilot Ara Zobayan, 50, died.
Vanessa’s lawyer Luis Li spoke about the emotional distress the images taken on January 26, 2020, have had on the philanthropist and businesswoman. Months after the tragedy, Vanessa Bryant sued L.A. County for graphic photographs of the victims shared with unauthorized people for entertainment.
According to Rolling Stone, the attorney showed the 10-member jury footage of Deputy Joey Cruz at the Baja California Bar & Grill in Norwalk, showing the images to a bartender who then walked away. Ralph Mendez, sitting near the bar, noticed that Cruz had photos of the crash site on his phone. After pondering about what he should do next, Mendez decided to inform Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva to avoid the images leaking online.
“January 26, 2020, was and always will be the worst day of Vanessa Bryant’s life,” Li reportedly told the jury. “County employees exploited the accident. They took and shared pictures of Kobe and Gianna as souvenirs. …They poured salt in an unhealable wound.”
Vanessa’s representative said first responders “walked around the wreckage and took pictures of broken bodies from the helicopter crash. They took close-ups of limbs, of burnt flesh. It shocks the conscience.” The jury also heard audio of an officer’s wife refusing to see the images because they were “piles of meat.”
In a declaration filed by Bryant in 2021, she said she’s felt “tremendous pain and distress.”
“It infuriates me that the people I trusted to protect the dignity of my husband and daughter abused their positions to obtain souvenirs of their deaths, as though possessing pictures of their remains somehow makes them special,” Bryant noted.
“I feel sick at the thought that deputies and firefighters have gawked at photos of my husband’s and child’s bodies without any reason,” she added. “I also feel extreme sadness and anger knowing that photos of my husband’s and daughter’s bodies were laughed about while shown at a bar and an awards banquet. Given how many people had the photos, I am confident these were not the only times the photos were shown off.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, Sheriff Alex Villanueva offered amnesty from discipline to the people involved if they deleted the images and told themselves.
It has over two years since the crash, and such photos have never been leaked; however, for Vanessa Bryant, there is a possibility that they may surface. “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,” Vanessa Bryant said in 2021.
Bryant and the other families hurting from the crash are suing the county and the sheriff for negligence and invasion of privacy. The Board of Supervisors agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle, but the parties involved refused the offer. After the lawsuit, it is now considered a misdemeanor for first responders to take unauthorized pictures of a death scene.
On October 12, 2021, Vanessa appeared in a Zoom video conference to testify on the morning of the helicopter crash. According to the transcript, filed in court on Friday, October 22, and obtained by E! News, Vanessa said that although she has not seen any photos of her husband and daughter’s remains, she has the clothes that Kobe and Gianna wore during the helicopter. “I had to recover all their items because I know people are sick and would like to take pictures of them and share them,” she said.
“They suffered a lot,” she added. “And if their clothes represent the condition of their bodies, I cannot imagine how someone could be callous and have no regard for them or our friends, and just share the images as if they were animals on a street.”