Vanessa Bryant, the widow of Kobe, and the painful trial for the photos of the basketball player and his daughter

vanessa bryant, widow of Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, revealed the nightmare she experienced when, a month after the deaths of her husband and daughter Gianna, she discovered that police and firefighters took and shared photos of the bodies of both. on the scene of the murder. helicopter crash that cost them their lives. “I felt like I wanted to run, run down the street and scream“, he said with a broken voice and tears in his eyes, during the first day of the trial he filed a complaint against Los Angeles County for violation of privacy, for having illegally disseminated the images.

“I felt like running off a dock and jumping into the water. The problem is, I can’t escape. I can’t get away from my body,” Bryant said, sobbing.

Vanessa said about a month after the incident, which occurred in January 2020, she believed she was “ready to begin the grieving process.” But when I discovered the existence of those photographs, “I felt attacked from behind, devastated, hurt. I believed him. I believed they wouldn’t do these things”.

the widow of “Mamba” said she was out with friends and her daughters and carrying her 7 month old baby when she was called for an article about Los Angeles Timeswhich mentioned photos relating to the helicopter crash.

“I ran out of the house and moved so my girls wouldn’t see anything,” she said.

Evidence presented during the trial showed that a LAPD officer had shown a photograph of Bryant’s body while drinking in a bar, for which a person who was at the scene and observed the situation filed an official complaint. Other evidence revealed that some firefighters shared images with each other at an awards banquet. And that others have shown them to their spouses.

According to a county prosecutor, the photos were taken solely because they were essential for assessing the environment after the helicopter crash. And when the Los Angeles County Sheriff, Alex Villanuevahe found that they had been shared, he demanded that they all be deleted.

Luigi LiBryant’s lawyer argued instead that they were not taken for any official purpose of investigating the incident, but to become “visual gossip” and humiliate the victims. “They were shared repeatedly with people who had absolutely no reason to receive them,” she said.

Although none of the photos have been publicly released and authorities say this will not happen because they have all been permanently deleted, Bryant said she is constantly mortified that some of them may come out in the future.

“Every day I live in fear of being on social media and finding them – he testified – I live in fear that my daughters are on social media and that the photos are displayed”.

She also said that this thought keeps her awake at night when she is next to her 3 and 5-year-old daughters, and sometimes causes panic attacks, which don’t let them breathe.

Kobe Bryant, 41, considered one of the best basketball players in history and winner of five NBA rings with the Lakers, and daughter Gianna, 13, died on January 26, 2020, when the helicopter they were traveling in crashed into the mountains. of Calabasas, California. The other seven people on board the plane also died.

In February of last year, investigators assured that the pilot was disoriented due to the fog and claimed that he did not follow the established piloting protocol when flying in thick cloud cover. Soon after, Vanessa reached a financial settlement with the helicopter company she was suing for the accident.

The lawsuit for the release of the photographs was filed jointly by Vanessa and Chris Chesterwho lost his wife and daughter, also 13, in the same accident.

With information from EFE and AP