CALABASAS, CA — Sheriff Alex Villanueva admitted to reporters Monday that he ordered the graphic photos taken by eight deputies of the Kobe Bryant crash site and victims’ remains to be destroyed.
The Los Angeles Times reported last week that the department quietly ordered deputies to delete any photos taken of the helicopter crash scene, including photos of the victims’ remains, after a bartender complained that a deputy was showing graphic images at a Norwalk bar.
Sources inside the department said the decision could amount to the destruction of evidence, and normally a complaint of this magnitude would lead to a formal inquiry and potentially an internal affairs investigation, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Instead, the deputies were told that if they came clean and deleted the photos, they would not face any discipline, sources told the Times.
Villanueva admitted to NBC4 Monday that eight deputies were involved in sharing photos of the crash site, and he ordered the photos to be destroyed.
“That was my number one priority, to make sure those photos no longer existed,” Villanueva told NBC4.
Vanessa Bryant, widow of the Los Angeles Lakers legend, said she was “absolutely devastated” that deputies shared photos of the scene of the crash that killed her husband and 13-year-old daughter, her lawyer said in a statement Saturday.
Her attorney Gary Robb said Vanessa went to the sheriff’s office the day of the crash and asked the crash site be protected from photographers. The National Transportation Safety Board and coroner’s office were the only agencies that were supposed to be taking photos at the scene of the crash, Villanueva said.
“It was such a hard scene dealing with the families first hand at Lost Hills Station… reassuring them that we’re doing everything possible, and then to find out days later that this happened. It’s just a sense of betrayal,” Villanueva told reporters. “All photos that we know of that were in the possession of the individuals were deleted.”
In a statement issued by the department Friday, Villanueva said he was “deeply disturbed at the thought deputies could allegedly engage in such an insensitive act.”
Villanueva went on to pledge in the statement that “a thorough investigation will be conducted by the department, with the No. 1 priority of protecting the dignity and privacy of the victims and their families.”
According to TMZ, multiple Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies took photos of the crash scene, including photos of the remains. One of the deputies, a trainee, took photos and at some point went to a bar “and, as one source put it, ‘He tried to impress a girl by showing her the photos,'” the celebrity news website said. TMZ reported a bartender overheard the conversation and filed an online complaint with LASD.