LOS ANGELES, United States —
Kobe Bryant’s
widow told a court Friday she was devastated when she learned first responders
had snapped graphic photographs of her dead husband and daughter in the wreckage
of the helicopter crash that killed them.
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A tearful Vanessa Bryant said she lives in fear of
the pictures surfacing on the internet, and “constantly being spread”.
“Once it’s spread, you can’t get it back,” she said.
US basketball legend Kobe Bryant and his teenage
daughter were among nine people who died when their chopper smashed into a
hillside near Los Angeles in 2020.
Vanessa Bryant alleges she has suffered emotional
distress because personnel from the
Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and
firefighters took pictures of the scene which they later shared, including at a
bar, with friends and other first responders.
One sheriff’s deputy acknowledged that he had sent
the pictures to a fellow deputy as the pair played “Call of Duty”.
Vanessa Bryant told a Los Angeles court on Friday
she had bolted out of the house to find a place to cry away from her daughters
when she learned of the existence of the photos.
Bryant is suing Los Angeles County for unspecified
millions of dollars in damages, in a case that has been joined to that of Chris
Chester, whose wife and daughter also perished in the crash.
The suits allege negligence and invasion of privacy.
Attorneys say the grisly mobile phone pictures were
snapped as “souvenirs” by first responders who had no business taking photos.
Lawyers for Los Angeles County do not dispute that
the photos were taken, but insist they have never been made public and have now
been deleted.
Chester told the courtroom in Los Angeles of his
disbelief when he learned of the pictures a month after the tragedy — including
that they had been flaunted at a bar and at an awards ceremony.
Mira Hashmall, representing the county in the civil
litigation, said earlier that the case, which began last week, hinged on this
issue of public dissemination.
“From the time of the crash to now, the county has
worked tirelessly to prevent its crash site photos from getting into the public
domain,” she said. “Over two and a half years later, no county photos have
appeared in the media, none can be found online, and the plaintiffs admit
they’ve never seen them.”
Relatives of other victims were last year granted
$2.5 million in compensation over the photo-taking.
An investigation into the crash found the pilot had
probably become disorientated after flying the Sikorsky S-76 into fog.
Bryant is widely recognized as one of the greatest
basketball players ever, a figure who became the face of his sport during a
glittering two decades with the Los Angeles Lakers.
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