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Vanessa Bryant posted on Instagram naming the deputies accused of sharing graphic photos of the helicopter crash that killed Kobe and Gianna

Mar 18, 2021, 17:54 IST
Insider
REUTERS/Danny Moloshok
  • Vanessa Bryant is suing four sheriff's deputies over the crash that killed her husband and daughter.
  • The four deputies are accused of taking and sharing photos of the gruesome crash site.
  • Bryant shared images of unredacted court documents on her Instagram account on Wednesday.
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One week after winning her case to obtain the names of sheriff's deputies accused of taking gruesome photos of the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash site, Vanessa Bryant posted the officers' names on social media.

In a series of 12 Instagram photos Wednesday night, Bryant shared screenshots of an unredacted lawsuit that describes four Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputies taking and sharing photos of the scene of the helicopter crash scene that killed her husband; their 13-year-old daughter, Gianna; and seven others in January 2020.

The amended complaint, filed by Bryant's lawyers Wednesday, accuses sheriff's deputies who responded to the crash site of using their personal cellphones to take and share "gratuitous photos of the dead children, parents, and coaches." One deputy in particular is accused of taking 25 to 100 photos of the scene that were focused directly on the crash victims' remains.

The complaint said that the disturbing photos became "gossip within the Department" and that the four deputies named in the suit "showed off" the photos to various colleagues and non-colleagues, including to a bartender at a restaurant one of the deputies was visiting.

One deputy, who had no role investigating the accident, later told investigators "curiosity got the best of [them], and such curiosity was "in [their] nature" as deputies, according to the complaint.

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The complaint said that within 48 hours of the crash, at least 10 members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department possessed the photos.

Bryant sued the sheriff's department in September, accusing the four deputies of "negligence" and "intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of her right to privacy." The amended complaint names the sheriff's department, Los Angeles County, the Los Angeles County Fire Department, and the sheriff's deputies Joey Cruz, Rafael Mejia, Michael Russell, and Raul Versales as defendants.

Following a months-long fight in court, a federal judge ruled in favor of Bryant last week, rejecting a bid by the department's attorneys to keep the names of the four deputies under wraps. The defense attorneys had argued "hackers may attempt to seek out and gain access to the individual deputies' devices to locate any photographs and publish them."

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department had no comment at the time of publication.

The complaint is below:

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