January 26, 2020, the day when the world mourned the loss of Kobe and Gigi Bryant, Vanessa Bryant was deeply affected by the news. She had to single-handedly raise her 3 daughters alone and provide them with their necessities. However, as the news of their death was quite fresh, pictures of the crash and human remains got leaked.
Vanessa, who was already mourning the loss of her husband then filed a lawsuit against the alleged. However, on August 9, 2022, she testified and explained the emotional turmoil that she went through. Seeing the photos, she felt helpless and disgusted and had panic attacks every night thinking about it. “I did not know that people would refer to them as piles of meat, gumbo, and hamburger meat.” – she also mentioned.
Apart from this spoke of her reaction at home when she saw those leaked photos. She mentioned wanting to run off and scream somewhere where nobody was present and could see her emotions. “I bolted out of the house and I ran to the side of the house so the girls couldn’t see me. I felt like I wanted to run, run down the block and scream.” – she said as tears ran down from her eyes.
Thus, ending her statement she said- “I don’t ever want to see these photographs. I want to remember my husband and my daughter the way they were.” However, the lawsuit was filed along with Chris Chester whose wife and daughter also died in the crash. Throughout the incident, Vanessa Bryant was greatly supported by many people including Kobe’s former Lakers teammate Derek Fisher.
A brief of the lawsuit filed by Vanessa Bryant against the Los Angeles Sheriff’s County
After the photos of the crash and human remains were leaked by three sheriff’s deputies, the news spread all over the media. Following this, Vanessa filed a lawsuit against the Sherriff’s Department and the county. In an Instagram post, she then posted a document where the names of the officers involved were mentioned.
However, among those names, two sheriff’s deputies Joey Cruz and Michael Russell publicly came up and remorse for their actions. On the fifth day of the trial between Vanessa and the County, both testified. Both of them apologized for their actions and regretted the decision to leak those gruesome pictures of the accident.
REPORT: Vanessa Bryant will be donating the $16 million she was awarded from the LA County lawsuit to the Mamba & Mambacita Foundation.
(via @TMZ, https://t.co/pnNueZJX9d) pic.twitter.com/3vsBASzREU
— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) August 26, 2022
Apart from this, the bartender, to whom the sheriff’s also showed the pictures, also testified against them. However, the county agreed to pay a charge of $16 million as per the lawsuit after the whole debate.
Thus, still today Vanessa and the others who lost their loved ones mourn the loss and it can never be easily gone. People from all over the world are greatly affected by the loss of Kobe and Gigi Bryant till now.
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