A culture of callousness led Los Angeles County to shoot and share photos of the remains of Kobe Bryant and other victims of the 2020 helicopter crash.
Luis Li said in his opening statement that the cell-phone photos taken at the crash scene by a deputy and a fire captain were viewed for a laugh.
They were shared by the sheriff's office. They were shared with people who didn't have any reason to get them.
An attorney for the county defended the taking of the photos as an essential tool for first-responders seeking to share information when they thought they might still save lives at the chaotic, dangerous and hard-to-reach crash scene.
The lawyer said that site photography is important.
During her lawyer's presentation, she cried a lot. She wiped tears from her eyes as she took a break.
The Los Angeles Times compounded her suffering when she learned that the photos' circulation wasn't from the county.
It was the worst day of Bryant's life. The county made the situation worse. Salt was rubbed in an open wound.
Li showed the security video of the off-duty sheriff's deputy drinking at the bar to the bartender. An image of the men laughing together was shown by the lawyer. Firefighters looked at the phone photos two weeks later at an awards banquet and Li showed the jury a chart of their spread.
According to Li, the county failed to conduct a thorough investigation to make sure every copy of the photo was accounted for, and because of the fear that they will someday surface, her surviving children may see them online.
The fact that the pictures have not appeared in more than two years shows that the leaders in the sheriff's and fire department did their jobs, according to the defense.
They are not on the internet. The media doesn't have them in it. They have never been seen by the people who are suing them. She said that it was not an accident. It's a function of how much they were willing to work.
She said that the sheriff and department officials immediately brought in all the people involved and ordered them to destroy the photos.
He picked what he thought was the only option. Every second mattered to him.
The video of the bartender was shown to the jury by Li because the Sheriff's Department got a complaint from another bar patron who saw the photo sharing.
She said the bartender was a long time friend of the deputy's and that he was struggling emotionally from the crash scene.
She said that it should not have happened. He has regretted it every day of his life after showing those photos.
The defense attorney told the jury to ignore the grief of the people who brought the lawsuit.
She said that there was no doubt that the families had suffered. It's terrible. The case isn't about the crash. It's about the photos.
Chris Chester is one of the people in the lawsuit who wants millions.
The county agreed to pay more than $2 million to the families of the two people who died in the crash. Bryant and Chester didn't want to pay.
Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter, and other parents and players were on their way to a girls basketball tournament when their helicopter crashed. The crash was blamed on pilot error.
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