Vanessa Bryant has been granted the legal go-ahead to use the names of police deputies who released pictures of Kobe’s chopper crash.
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Vanessa filed a lawsuit against LA County deputies, seeking damages for negligence and invasion of privacy. Some deputies and firefighters took and shared photos of the children, parents, and coaches who died in the Jan. 26, 2020, crash.
U.S. District Judge John F. Walter stated the following in his ruling:
“Indeed where the case involves allegations of police misconduct, the public has a vested interest in assessing the truthfulness of the allegations of official misconduct, and whether agencies that are responsible for investigating and adjudicating complaints of misconduct have acted properly and wisely.”
“Although the Court recognizes that this case has been the subject of public scrutiny and media attention and that the Deputy Defendants are legitimately concerned that they will encounter vitriol and social media attacks, such concerns, by themselves, are not sufficient to outweigh the public’s strong interest in access.”
Vanessa Bryant can go ahead with the suit using the defendants’ names
Judge Walter also wrote this in his reports:
“Sheriff Villanueva’s promise to publicly release the [internal affairs bureau] report after the conclusion of the investigation undermines Defendants’ purported concern in the disclosure of the limited excerpts at issue here.”
Vanessa has clearly been going through some trying times over the past year. She alleged that her mother has been acting in a money-minded fashion:
“I was willing to provide my mother with monthly support for the rest of her life, and that wasn’t good enough. She, instead, contacted me through intermediaries – contrary to what she claims, my phone number hasn’t changed – and demanded $5 million, a house and a Mercedes SUV.”
We hope that the Bryant family can find peace with each other, instead of squabbling in a fashion that Kobe wouldn’t have wanted.
