Vanessa Bryant lost control on the first day of the Kobe Bryant crash against L.A county. The wife of Kobe Bryant has sued L.A. county’s fire department and sheriff’s department for allegedly releasing and sharing the unauthorized pictures of the crashed helicopter that resulted in the death of Kobe Bryant, her teenage daughter Gianna and 7 other people.
40-year-old Vanessa Bryant had a tough first day in court. She was in the federal courtroom seated next to her lawyer, Luis Li while sobbing profusely. Vanessa claims that the employees of the said departments “exploited the accident” by taking unauthorized pictures of the remains of her husband and daughter and sharing them as “souvenirs”.
Attorney Luis Li said in the opening statement that “they poured salt in an unhealable wound. They took close-ups of limbs, of burnt flesh. It shocks the conscience.”
Attorney Li also played painful audio of a detective who described the images and photos of the deceased as “piles of meat”.
As per the defendant; the county of Los Angeles stated that the lawsuit by Vanessa Bryant doesn’t hold any legal merit at all.
The trial began after approximately two years of Vanessa filing the suit against Los Angeles officials over the matter of releasing the unauthorized photos.
According to the lawsuit, a lot of deputies of the sheriff’s office took pictures of the crash scene and shared them with each other. The lawsuit also claims that the authorities were immediately alerted about the photos after a witness filed a complaint online to the department of the sheriff.
The lawsuit also alleges that the county sheriff Alex Villanueva of Los Angeles ordered his deputies to delete them immediately once he found out about their existence and assured his counterparts that no disciplinary actions will be taken against them till the time everyone complies with his orders.
Vanessa Bryant has filed a lawsuit for emotional distress damages over the pictures and images.
In November of 2021, a magistrate judge ordered Vanessa Bryant and her therapist to submit the documents regarding her treatment both before and after the death of her husband Kobe Bryant as part of her lawsuit.
The Miller Barondess law firm representative Skip Miller had stated at that time, “the County continues to have nothing but the deepest sympathy for the enormous grief Ms. Bryant suffered as a result of the tragic helicopter accident. Our motion for access to her medical records, however, is a standard request in lawsuits where a plaintiff demands millions of dollars for claims of emotional distress. I have an obligation to take this step to defend the County.” The attorney representing Vanessa Bryant stated that she is “haunted” by the photos and the way they are circulated across the internet. She has undergone immense trauma by losing her loving husband and her eldest daughter and then she couldn’t stop the world from seeing her loved ones in such a compromised position.
