Vanessa Bryant’s attorney told jurors on Wednesday that the cell phone photos shot by first responders at the scene of a 2020 helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant were « visual gossip » viewed « for a laugh » and had no official purpose.
An institutional « culture of callousness » led Los Angeles County deputies and firefighters to shoot and share photos of the remains of Kobe Bryant and other victims of the 2020 helicopter crash that killed the Lakers star, his 13-year-old daughter and seven others, a lawyer for Bryant’s widow told a jury on Wednesday.
Vanessa Bryant’s attorney Luis Li told jurors in his opening statement in U.S. District Court in her invasion of privacy trial against the county that the cell phone photos shot at the crash scene by a deputy and a fire captain were « visual gossip » viewed « for a laugh » and had no official purpose.
« They were shared by deputies playing video games, » Li said. « They were shared repeatedly with people who had absolutely no reason to receive them. »
An attorney for the county defended the taking of the photos as an essential tool for first responders seeking to share information when they thought they might still save lives at the chaotic, dangerous and hard-to-reach crash scene in the Calabasas hills west of Los Angeles.
« Site photography is essential, » county lawyer J. Mira Hashmall said.
Vanessa Bryant cried frequently during her lawyer’s presentation. She was still wiping tears from her eyes minutes afterward during a break.
Li told jurors that learning a month after the crash about the photos’ circulation not from the county but the Los Angeles Times compounded her still-raw suffering.
