LOS ANGELES —The photos were flashed from a sheriff’s deputy’s phone screen to a bartender in Norwalk, California. They were shown to firefighters at an awards gala at the Hilton Hotel in Universal City. They were shared from one deputy to another while the men played the video game “Call of Duty.”
There were close-ups of the carnage from the helicopter crash that killed Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven others. And now they’re at the center of a heated civil trial that began Wednesday over how far the images spread and the pain they brought two families that lost loved ones in the crash.
Vanessa Bryant and Chris Chester — whose wife, Sarah, and daughter, Payton, were killed in the Jan. 26, 2020, incident — sat at the plaintiffs table of the downtown Los Angeles courtroom as their attorneys delivered emotional opening statements.
