Kobe Bryant’s widow, Vanessa Bryant, said on Saturday that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department wants to write the names of the officers who allegedly took photos at the scene of the helicopter crash that killed her husband, daughter and seven others.
“The Sheriff’s Department wants to write the names of the deputies who took and / or shared photos of my husband, daughter and other victims,” she wrote in an Instagram story on Saturday afternoon.
His attorneys filed an amended complaint this week against four LA County sheriff delegates, claiming that they took photos of the helicopter crash site and the remains of Kobe Bryant and 13-year-old Gianna Bryant, the Los Angeles Times reported.
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Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna Maria-Onore Bryant, his wife Vanessa and daughter Natalia Diamante Bryant are seen before a Connecticut-UCLA NCAA women’s basketball game in Los Angeles, November 21, 2017. ( Associated Press)
County attorneys argue that removing the stamp from deputies’ names would make their addresses and other personal information public, potentially making them targets for hackers and others who want to harm them, according to the newspaper.
The Department of Homeland Security is encouraging police officers across the country to increase their online security due to fears that police are being targeted by doxxing tactics, the Associated Press reported last year.
The DHS report said the agency has “average confidence that cyber attackers are likely to continue to target police officers”.
Forty-three police officers were killed in the line of duty last year, and 43 others were killed the year before.
Vanessa Bryant argued on Saturday that “anyone else facing the charges would be unprotected, named and made public.”
“Not all law enforcement is bad,” she wrote. “These specific deputies need to be held accountable for their actions, just like everyone else.”
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She originally sued the LA County Sheriff’s Department in September, seeking compensation for negligence, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said last year that he ordered eight police officers to erase the graphic images they took from the crash site.
“That was my number one priority, making sure that those photos no longer exist,” Villanueva told NBC News in March. “We identified the police officers involved, they came to the police station on their own and admitted that they took them and deleted them. And we are pleased that those involved have done so.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill in September that makes it a misdemeanor for early respondents to take photos of the crime scene for any reason other than the official purpose of law enforcement.
Firefighters work at the scene of a helicopter crash where former NBA star Kobe Bryant died in Calabasas, California, on January 26, 2020. (Associated Press)”/>
Firefighters work at the scene of a helicopter crash where former NBA star Kobe Bryant died in Calabasas, California, on January 26, 2020. (Associated Press)
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Kobe Bryant, his daughter and six others were heading to their Mamba Sports Academy in Ventura County on a cloudy January morning last year when their helicopter crashed against a hillside in Calabasas, northwest of Los Angeles.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators said in a report earlier this month that pilot Ara Zobayan lost his way when flying through the clouds and thought he was climbing when he was actually diving.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.