"One particularly memorable example of this conduct came in 1994, when I was assigned as a supervisor at Operations West Bureau CRASH, I was shown a Polaroid of a deceased Nicole Brown Simpson," Bercovici said in the filings."The photograph depicted the deceased with her throat cut, almost to the point of decapitation." In court documents filed in January, Bercovici wrote that as a longtime member of the LAPD, he "personally investigated over one hundred personnel complaints." Bryant is suing the county for negligence, emotional distress, and invasion of privacy claims as well as federal claims which relate to the constitutional right to the images of her deceased loved ones, and LA County agency practices that led to the alleged taking and dissemination of photos.
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Her suit is seeking punitive damages from county defendants who are accused of taking and sharing crash site photos. In September 2020, Bryant sued the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the county's fire department, the county as a whole, and eight officers in the wake of reports that first responders took and shared photos of the January 2020 crash site.
#The witness bird calls trial#
On Friday, at a pre-trial conference before the August 10 trial date, Judge John Walter said that Bercovici's testimony would be relevant to the case - a win for Bryant.
![the witness bird calls the witness bird calls](https://www.syfy.com/sites/syfy/files/styles/syfy_image_gallery_full_breakpoints_theme_syfy_smartphone_1x/public/s01_e0105_01_131800793515.jpg)
Īdam Bercovici, the former police officer that Bryant's team will call to the stand, wrote in court filings that he had personally been shown photos of dead victims, often logged as "death books," and argued that the "ghoulish souvenirs" were a cultural issue within Southern California law enforcement ever since Polaroid cameras have been in use. Vanessa Bryant and Los Angeles County notched wins on Friday, at a hearing ahead of Bryant's trial against the county over accusations that LA County personnel took and shared photos of the helicopter crash that killed Kobe and Gianna Bryant and seven others.Īttorneys representing Vanessa Bryant will be allowed to call a 30-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department who claims to have seen law enforcement "death books," but they were limited by the judge in terms of the internal Los Angeles County discipline letters they can reference to make their case that the photos were shared amongst staff.