As the hike got steeper, the brush thicker and the mud too deep for most MPs to navigate, all but two turned around. One of those misrepresented was Deputy Doug Johnson. After nearly an hour of climbing through 6-foot brush, Johnson reached the wreckage, a feat that could have been described as heroic. Instead, the events that followed set off a chain reaction that landed Johnson on the witness stand in federal court on Friday, testifying in a civil lawsuit alleging that Los Angeles County and some of its employees violated privacy and caused emotional distress to Vanessa Bryant. , the widow of one of the region’s most beloved sports stars. Her husband, basketball star Kobe Bryant, and their daughter Gianna were among the nine killed in the crash. In court testimony, Johnson described the scene as among the “most gruesome” he had ever seen, with bodies strewn across hilly terrain he said was the size of a football field. But even though all nine aboard died in the crash, Johnson still had work to do. By now, a command post had been set up by authorities, and Johnson testified that a supervisor there gave him the order. “Take pictures, document the scene and send them to headquarters,” his supervisor told him, Johnson said on the witness stand as he testified in the suit brought by Vanessa Bryant. At the heart of the lawsuit are photos of the crash that Johnson took — 25 by his count, a number that plaintiffs’ lawyers say is much higher — a third of which Johnson said were human remains, the rest of wreck yourself. “When you took the pictures, did you know Kobe Bryant was in the helicopter?” Johnson was questioned on cross-examination by Los Angeles County District Attorney Mira Hasmal. “No ma’am,” he said. Jerome Jackson, the attorney for co-plaintiff Christopher Chester, whose wife Sarah and 13-year-old daughter Peyton were also killed in the crash, was more pointed during cross-examination, asking if Johnson took photos of specific body parts, to which Johnson responded. , “Yes, sir,” every time. The photos aren’t the only reason the county is on the defensive. Rather, it is, in part, what allegedly happened next.
A mysterious fire warden
Johnson said he was soon met by a fire supervisor who arrived at the scene with a similar task: to take pictures to send back to his command post so a tactical response could be organized. Johnson said he told the man he already had photos and agreed to airdrop them to the fire marshal — someone he couldn’t identify, he said on the stand. “Do you know who it is? Jackson asked. “You know where it is; “No,” Johnson said. “Is he a fire warden or a pretend fire warden?” Jackson replied. “I think he was a fire marshal because of his helmet,” Johnson said. Neither the prosecution nor the defense have ever identified the man, which is a key argument in Bryant and Chester’s claim that they live in fear of the photos emerging. Johnson later said he led then-Los Angeles County Sheriff Brian Jordan around the scene to take his own photos, noting the third person who received photos documenting the location. For his part, Johnson said he went home that night and, no longer needing the grim photos, deleted them from his phone. But it wasn’t the end. In a flowchart on display in the courtroom, Bryant’s attorney, Louis Lee, laid out what he said happened in the photos Johnson says he sent to the command post. Lee said two people spread them further. One of those deputies was a trainee who had also worked in crash response and, two days later, showed them to a bartender he considered a friend, along with his niece and another deputy who allegedly shared them with another deputy while playing the “Call of Duty” video game, Lee said. In total, Li’s flowchart suggests that the photos were either shared or viewed by at least 13 people, not all of them for research purposes. “Curiosity got the best of us,” one of the deputies said in an internal affairs interview played in court. Separately, the photos taken by firefighters were allegedly shared or shown to at least a dozen people, the plaintiffs say.Also Friday, former emergency technician, wife of a Los Angeles firefighter and cousin of one of the victims, Luella Weireter, testified that he saw a Los Angeles County firefighter share photos of Bryant’s remains and other images from the crash site with attendees at an awards banquet in February 2020. After a small group of people at her table looked at the images on a cell phone, in what Weireter described as a party trick, she testified that she saw a firefighter leave the group, saying, “I can’t believe it just looking at the burned Kobe’s body and now I’m ready to eat.” On cross-examination, the county attorney argued that Weireter didn’t actually see the photos herself, and as an EMT, her training would have taught her to record a scene as well.
I dont regret
A key argument in the case is whether the photos needed to be taken at all. It’s what the defense calls “accident scene photography,” and several witnesses have testified to its validity as part of an initial response to a crash. “It would make sense that headquarters would want to know what they were up to,” testified David Katz, a reserve deputy with the county’s search and rescue team that responded to the scene hours after the crash. Deputy Johnson told the stand that it is common practice to photograph the scene “before evidence is destroyed or victims are moved.” But the plaintiffs argued that the gruesome photos were not needed to provide a proper response to the crash. They also claim the county failed to include the photos because it never forensically searched the personal electronics of those who took them. The county calls its actions adequate, pointing to the fact that the photos have not yet appeared online. Deputy Johnson remained calm, just doing his job. “Is it your testimony that taking close-ups of Kobe Bryant’s arm and hand helped the command determine if additional resources were needed?” asked plaintiff attorney Eric Tuttle. “Yes, sir,” replied Johnson. “Do you regret anything you did…?” Tuttle asked. Johnson answered confidently. “No sir.”
