Vanessa Bryant fired back this week at Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who recently challenged Lakers superstar LeBron James to match reward money for information on the shooting of two deputies in Compton, California, over the weekend.
Bryant took to Instagram to highlight a few articles and tweets that show how Villanueva and his department may have leaked photos of the scene in which her husband's helicopter crashed back in January. Sadly, all passengers on the flight perished in the tragic accident, including Kobe Bryant and the couple's daughter, Gianna.
One of the tweets that Vanessa shared came from @ElanMaree, who called into question Villanueva's comments about trusting the criminal justice system. As part of a public appearance earlier this week, the LA County sheriff urged athletes and elected officials to have trust in their work instead of “fanning flames of hatred.”
How can he talk about trusting the system? His sheriff’s dept. couldn’t be trusted to secure Kobe Bryant’s helicopter crash scene, his deputies took and shared graphic photos of crash victims. Vanessa Bryant is suing them. https://t.co/X48h2h4MNv
— Elan (@ElanMaree) September 15, 2020
Vanessa then shared an article from The Hollywood Reporter, which shows that the union for deputies of the LA County Sheriff's Department was suing Villanueva to keep the internal affairs investigation surrounding the distribution of the crash scene photos private.
Bryant made her own statement against Villanueva and the department back in May, noting that eight deputies were on the scene taking photos:
“No fewer than eight sheriff’s deputies were at the scene snapping cell-phone photos of the dead children, parents, and coaches,” the claim reads, via Yahoo.com. “As the department would later admit, there was no investigative purpose for deputies to take pictures at the crash site. Rather, the deputies took photos for their own personal purposes.”
Villanueva previously told reporters that only the county coroner’s office and National Transportation Safety Board investigators were permitted to take photos of the crash scene.
“That is the only two groups of people,” Villanueva said in March. “Anybody outside of that would be unauthorized. They’d be illicit photos.”
Vanessa also shared this photo, which suggests a potential cover-up:
As part of an interview with KABC Radio on the John Phillips Show, Villanueva challenged Lakers superstar LeBron James to contribute in the efforts of finding the gunman who recently shot two Los Angeles County deputies at point-blank range. Villanueva urged James to match and double the reward money being offered for information. As of now, the reward stands at $175,000, which comes from a combination of donations of $100,000 from the county and $75,000 from two private parties.
“This challenge is to Lebron James. I want you to match that and double that reward,” Villanueva said, via foxnews.com. “I know you care about law enforcement. You expressed a very interesting statement about your perspective on race relations and on officer-involved shootings and the impact that it has on the African-American community.
“And I appreciated that,” he continued. “But likewise, we need to appreciate that respect for life goes across all professions.”
James, who has not responded to Villanueva's challenge, has been outspoken about his displeasure of social justice and police misconduct.
“I know people get tired of hearing me say it, but we are scared as Black people in America,” James said following the Lakers' Game 4 win over the Portland Trail Blazers last month, via foxnews.com. “Black men, Black women, Black kids, we are terrified.”
Lastly, Vanessa posted a screenshot with a quote from the LA County Sheriffs Department, which denounced the shooting of the two aforementioned deputies. As part of her post, she wrote, “Not all deputies are bad apples. Prayers for the 2 deputies that were shot.”
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