(CNN)Vanessa Bryant testified Thursday afternoon describing images taken at the scene } left the court during About the deadly helicopter crash that claimed the lives of her husband, NBA legend Kobe Bryant, her daughter and seven others.
When Vanessa Bryant was asked if bartender Victor Gutierrez saw her daughter Gianna Bryant's body in her image, she became emotional. Gutierrez was describing what he saw in a photo shown to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy.
Bryant cried to her feet and her attorney asked the presiding judge for permission for Bryant to leave the courtroom. Told.
Bryant did not return for the rest of Gutierrez's testimony following a series of surveillance clips from the bar on Jan. 28, 2020. Gutierrez admitted he told five groups of people about the condition of the victim's body after he frowned at the photo.
One of his people with whom he spoke about photography was Ralph Mendez. He later filed a complaint against the agent who first showed Gutierrez the photo.
"I was in disbelief, disappointed, disgusted and angry," Mendez said, referring to details Gutierrez told him that night. "He's in that position. I felt he was carrying the public's trust. He betrayed the public's trust when he showed him the pictures of the victims."
Bryant said , sat through the end of Thursday's testimony by Los Angeles Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka, the first witness to the trial, and one of the first responders.
Bryant was not in court during the coroner's testimony, but he returned to hear Gutierrez's testimony before leaving court.
Dozens of employees shared photos of the crash, lawyers say.
Bryant said 20 disturbing images were taken at the scene. More than people said it was shared among Los Angeles County employees. Her attorney, Lewis Lee, said Wednesday.
Li presented a flow chart where the first photo spread from her one congressman to her 12-plus members and her 12-plus members of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. "Call of Duty" video Some photos were shared among lawmakers playing her game, Li said in an opening statement.
Vanessa Bryant wiped away tears when Lee explained how her sheriff's deputy took and shared the photos.
"They took pictures of the mutilated corpses, close-ups of limbs and charred flesh," the lawyer said. ``It shocks the conscience.'' Surveillance footage played in the
court showed one of her agents showing a picture to a bartender at a bar.
"[Bryant] never imagined that in his worst nightmare, police and first responders would go and photograph Kobe and Gianna's bodies for no reason," Lee said.
The attorney said county officials did not cause the accident on January 26, 2020, but called it a "poured salt on a wound that would not heal." accused of abuse.
The defense emphasized that the photos had not been leaked online or in the media, and cautioned jurors to separate the tragedy of the accident from the facts of the incident involving the photos.
} "The family suffered an unspeakable loss, but it's about the helicopter crash," said Mila Hashmol, an attorney representing LA County. "This case is about the first responders and what they did."
The Lakers GM sobbed during testimony
Wednesday's proceedings , ended with a testimony from Los Angeles Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka. Godfather of Kobe Bryant and Gianna. On the day of the crash, Pelinka said she helped Vanessa Bryant seek assurances from the sheriff that the site was safe from people trying to photograph the scene. Bryant shared the horror, anxiety, and grief he saw after learning that crime scene photos were being circulated among lawmakers.
"Who uses the same picture for ballroom jokes and cocktail chatter?" Jackson said.
An important debate in this incident is whether first responders should have taken pictures of the crash site in the first place.
The defense argued that photographs of the scene were justified because the crash site was one mile above him on a 1,250-foot mountainside. Hashmall said it wasn't just the corpses that the lieutenant took pictures of.
Had the lieutenant not recorded the scene during the drill, he would not have been able to inform the command center, which was tasked not only with the search and recovery, but also with fighting the wildfire fire. , he said Hashmall. by crash.
"I can't write an answer without a picture," she said.
After learning that Kobe Bryant was among the victims, David Katz, the reserve lieutenant for LA County's Malibu Search and Rescue Corps, told supervisors not to take pictures of the crash site. However, he arrived at the scene only to find that a deputy had already taken the photos.
When asked by the defense if he was surprised that his lieutenant had taken the picture, Katz replied, "Absolutely not. The command post wants to know what they are dealing with." Of course it would be," he said.
Capt. Emily Tauscher of the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office later testified that the coroner's office did not ask the agent to photograph the remains.
During cross-examination, Tauscher stated that "circumstances may change between the time the incident occurred and the coroner's arrival on the scene," so the office had previously taken photographs of first responders. said he relied on
The defense conceded that the photo should not have spread in this way, but argued that the county's early actions effectively contained it.
"We are being sued over photographs that have never been seen by plaintiffs, neither online nor in the media," she said.
Bryant's attorneys told jurors they intended to show the county's action did not completely contain the spread of the photo and that it could still surface online.
After the accident, Sheriff Villanueva told CNN that the agency was conducting an investigation and that eight sheriff's deputies shared photos of the accident scene with people outside the investigation. He said he faces administrative sanctions.
