Attorneys in LA County are saying
that the widow of Kobe Bryant,
Vanessa Bryant,
has gone too far in her lawsuit.
Because she has revealed the names
of some of the deputies who
apparently took photos and
then shared them of the deadly
helicopter crash that took
the lives of both her husband and
her daughter.
They're saying that she is putting
their lives at risk because
she shared their names.
According to new legal docs,
obtained by TMZ, the attorneys say
that she's aggressively conducting
a, quote, fishing expedition that's
taking first responders
away from their jobs.
And the county is referring to
the fact that she posted the names
of four different deputies who
allegedly took pics of the remains.
Now, what does this actually look
like in practice?
How many?
Well the document states
a sheriff's department
investigation shows that one deputy
of the four took between 25 to 100
photos of the crash scene.
The photos had no, quote,
conceivable investigatory purpose
and were focused directly
on the victims' remains.
So, there's more to this, I will
say, it's classic insult to injury.
After a horrendous incident,
an unthinkable tragedy,
that somebody would do that
potentially to make a name for
themselves, to make money off of it
by sharing images like that.
I can understand why that would
drive you insane in rage.
>> So, that's terrible and it's
an important part of the story.
To me, the bigger part of the story
is, the cops are unconcerned about
the cop who's trying to take
advantage of a dead body.
>> Yeah. >> Remember,
it's not just Kobe Bryant,
it's their 12 year old daughter.
>> Yes, as well as others too, but
from her point of view those
are two the most important.
>> So we got a cop who's a monster,
who sees a mangled 12 year old body
and thinks,
how can I make money off of it?
And the cops don't think that's
the problem, they think
Vanessa Bryant, the widow, calling
out that cop is a problem, why?
Because thin blue line,
it doesn't matter how gross or
criminal any cop is,
you always protect them.
That's the correct answer
in all circumstances.
Well, now this so called leader in
the police department is coming out
and blaming the widow.
I mean, forget the widow part,
I mean, look, I love basketball,
but this isn't about Kobe Bryant.
This is about accountability for
the police.
And do we have any morality,
any sense of decency?
Vanessa Bryant lost a 12 year old
daughter, let alone her husband,
a 12 year old daughter.
And your reaction is, let's attack
her publicly, because she wants
accountability for the police.
They said, that might
endanger the police.
I know, God forbid any of you
should get a hangnail.
And this job is really dangerous,
that's why we shoot and
kill people in two seconds.
So there's no danger at all,
because we're taught the minute you
see anything slightly dangerous,
you just kill him, right?
And you know the saying among
police, better to be judged by 12
than carried out by 6.
In other words, don't take any
chances with your life or safety or
anything.
And Vanessa Bryant is violating
their cardinal rule.
Just because you care about your
dead husband and 12 year old
daughter, you're daring to endanger
a police officer, 1% of 1%?
Endanger on what, on social media,
on Twitter?
He might have his feelings hurt.
Did you think about that, Vanessa?
Well, maybe he should have thought
about that as he was taking
pictures of a dead 12 year old.
>> Yeah, look, we occasionally in
these stories saying what should
we do and obviously it's complex.
But through the course of just this
hour, we've talked about cops
literally getting away with murder.
To cops bizarrely, creepily,
potentially trying to make money
off of spreading incredibly
private, terrible imagery and
hurting someone as a result of it.
We have got to shift
the conversation, in the media,
among regular people,
among our legislators, about cops.
Where we obviously give them
great power, and then we give
them no responsibility, and
we give them infinite protection.
And I think that right now
the battle over qualified immunity
is a very important
battleground about this.
We should have higher standards for
them, both in terms of if they use
violence, we should critique it
more than if a regular person does.
Because they do it so commonly and
because it is so often so deadly.
We should have much higher
standards when they do creepy
things like this.
We should have higher standards for
a cop who does something like this
than if a regular person did it.
But we are so far away from that,
we have no standards,
we have no expectations.
And we have the police unions that
will protect them, we have active
duty cops who'll protect them.
We have the county prosecutors who
will protect them.
We have judges who will protect
them, they get protected endlessly.
And most people don't question
that at all.
Hopefully, the protests of last
year we'll start to
chip away at that.
But we have
got to change the relationship
that regular people have to cops.
>> Yeah, so
it's an interesting theme that ties
together this whole show.
because earlier in the show, we
talked about the Israeli situation.
And same thing,
absolute power corrupts absolutely.
So, here in America,
police officers are above the law.
Until recently, they never ever,
ever, ever got convicted.
Every police officer would lie on
their behalf, they would cover up
their criminality.
The rest of the media would cover
on their behalf. Local news and
everybody else would kiss their ass
24/7 and tell you that they were
always trustworthy, lie after lie,
after lie and what did that create?
It didn't create just power,
created pretty much absolute power,
because they were above the law,
they acted with impunity. And they
have qualified immunity, it goes
on, and on. And with absolute power
comes absolute corruption, right?
And so that's what we have.
Unfortunately, same thing happened
with the right-wing government of
Israel, right?
The Americans said,
do anything you want,
kill any Palestinians you want,
you'll never be held accountable.
Occupy them for over 50 years,
you'll never be held accountable.
And power corrupts and
absolute power corrupts absolutely.
And so that's what happened in that
case too, unfortunately.
So, look, not every cop is bad,
of course, right?
So minority cops in Philly went out
of their way to oppose the police
union and support Larry Krasner for
getting reelected as prosecutor in
Philadelphia, because he actually
did criminal justice reform.
So, those are all good cops who
said, yes, we're here for
criminal justice reform, we want to
serve the community, okay?
But overall, in leadership across
the country, if you
assume that police are corrupt,
you are very likely to be correct.
I don't mean corrupt as in they
steal money from you, although that
sometimes happens, right?
But no, I mean corrupt as in, they
will cover up for the criminality
of fellow officers under almost any
and all circumstances.
They even have sayings about it,
that's what thin blue line means.
That means we all stand together,
no matter what.
I don't care what kind of a dirtbag
criminal you are, as long as
you got my same gang colors, and
you got my same gang badge and
same gang gun,
I'm with you in that gang so.
>> It's the mafia.
>> Yeah, and in this case,
everybody's upset about the guy who
took the pictures.
But the guy now trying to throw
Vanessa Bryant under the bus,
that so-called leader
in the police department,
he should be fired immediately.
So you don't want
accountability for
this scum that took those pictures.
Instead you're
trying to blame the widow,
he should be fired immediately.