After news that graphic photos from Kobe Bryant's helicopter crash site were taken by deputies who responded to the scene and passed them around broke, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has been accused of covering-up the act of its deputies after ordering them to delete the photos.
LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, has addressed the matter last Monday, when he confirmed that he indeed ordered as at least eight deputies to immediately delete the photos to prevent further distribution. Moreover, Villanueva said that the deputies moved forward on their own and admitted that they took the photos.
However, cover-up issues ensued when LA Times reported that the leadership of the department tried to keep the issue quiet, instead of following the protocol and investigating the severity of the issue even after they have determined that more deputies were able to obtain said photos.
There were also reports that the Sheriff Alex Villanueva was the one who wanted to avoid public disclosure of the issue which is why he had the deputies delete all the photos quietly, however, this move was viewed by some as legal experts as destruction of evidence.
Last week, after it was disclosed that the deputies shared the photos, Villanueva said that an investigation on the matter would be launched. But now, there are demands that are asking for an independent inquiry on the scandals that have afflicted the largest sheriff department in the nation.
According to the chair of the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission, Patti Giggans, she expects that Villanueva will find out who started and caused the leakage in a timely manner, but the said deletion of photos looked like it was to cover-up the misconduct.
Furthermore, Joseph Giacalone an instructor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice teaching police procedures stated that the Sheriff's Department mishandled the complaint. He also noted that instead of deleting the photos the department should have confiscated the cellphones used to take them and made sure no electronic copies were sent outside the agency.
Meanwhile, Vanessa Bryant, Kobe Bryant's widow, has released a statement written by one of her attorneys, Gary Robb which asked the sheriff's internal affairs to investigate the situation and demanded the "harshest possible discipline" for those who are involved.
Moreover, Robb referred to the incident as an unspeakable violation of privacy rights of the and human decency of the victims and their mourning families.
Having that said, Villanueva told several broadcast outlets that he was focused on containing the dissemination of the photos instead of executing punishment to the deputies involved. H also defended that if they had gone through the usual routine and gave disciplinary actions, the deputies involved might have got lawyers and this would increase the odds that the gruesome photos make their way to the public.
He also said that there were no department policies that disallows deputies to photograph crash scenes using their phones but he has plans to change that. However, it was stated in the Sheriff's Department's Manual of Policies and Procedures, members shall not use a personal cellphone "to record, store, document, catalog, transmit, and/or forward any image, document, scene, or environment captured as a result of their employment and/or while performing official Department business that is not available or accessible to the general public."