Vanessa Bryant can get the names of four Los Angeles County Sheriff Department officers who shared photos of the helicopter crash site that killed her husband NBA icon Kobe Bryant and their 13-year-old daughter Gianna Bryant, a federal judge ruled.
LA County argued that the officers’ names should be sealed because they may face possible harassment if personal information is released, as “hackers may attempt to seek out and gain access to the individual deputies’ devices to locate any photographs and publish them,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
Judge John F. Walter rejected that claim in his ruling, saying that it’s “totally inconsistent with their position that such photographs no longer exist,” according to CNN.
“The Sheriff’s Department wants to redact the names of the deputies that took and/or shared photos of my husband, daughter and other victims,” Bryant wrote in a statement posted on Instagram. “Anyone else facing allegations would be unprotected, named and released to the public. These specific deputies need to be held accountable for their actions just like everyone else.”
Following the crash that killed Kobe, Gianna and seven other people in January 2020, reports emerged that deputies at the scene shared gruesome photos of the crash scene.