Judge rules in favor of Vanessa Bryant in the crash photos suit
A federal judge in California has ruled that Kobe Bryant’s widow, Vanessa Bryant, can obtain the names of four Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies who allegedly shared graphic photos from the site of the helicopter crash that killed her husband, their daughter Gianna and seven others.
An effort by Los Angeles
County lawyers to keep the deputies’ names under seal was rejected Monday by U.S. District Judge John F. Walter, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The ruling means the names and details from an internal affairs investigation of the deputies could be added to Vanessa Bryant’s lawsuit against the county and the Sheriff’s Department. The county, however, can appeal the decision.
Kobe Bryant and the others were killed Jan. 26, 2020, when the helicopter they were aboard crashed west of Los Angeles in the hills of Calabasas.
The Times later reported that an investigation found deputies shared photos of victims’ remains. Vanessa Bryant sued, seeking damages for negligence and invasion of privacy.
County lawyers argued that the deputies’ names should remain under seal because releasing them would make it easy for hackers to locate their personal information and addresses.
The judge wrote that Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s “promise to publicly release the (internal affairs bureau) report after the conclusion of the investigation undermines Defendants’ purported concern in the disclosure of the limited excerpts at issue here.”
SANTA CRUZ >> Sutter Health announced that it will be expanding its eligibility for COVID-19 vaccine appointments for essential workers in an email sent Friday to Sutter Health patients.
The new eligibility parameters open the vaccination queue to farmworkers, food workers such as grocers and restaurant workers, education staff and child care providers, according to the email. Sutter will allow these groups to schedule a vaccination appointment dependent on available vaccine supply.
Despite the expansion of vaccine eligibility within Sutter Health, new vaccine appointments are unavailable within the Sutter system, according to the Sutter Health website. The company cited the lack of supply as to why it cannot schedule new vaccine appointments currently.
“Currently the scheduling of new first dose appointments throughout the Sutter Health system is paused, but we stand ready to vaccinate more than 25,000 eligible patients each day across our network, when supply is adequate,” Sutter wrote in the email.
However, there may be a limited number of first-dose appointments to be made in Santa Cruz County. At the moment, Sutter employees are reaching out to eligible residents to fill the limited number of appointments the health care provider has available.
“While scheduling of new first-dose appointments remains paused in other parts of the network at this time due to limited vaccine supply, in Santa Cruz the County Public Health Division is deploying a limited supply of their vaccine through our clinic,” the Sutter spokesman said in a statement. “The County is conducting outreach to essential workers and other eligible residents to fill the limited number of first-dose appointments currently available.”
The inability to create new appointments comes in the wake of the delay of more than 90,000 second-dose appointments by Sutter statewide. The health provider cited ongoing supply delays once again for the continued issues.
Once supply is available, vaccine appointments can be made at Sutter’s My Health Online dashboard or over the phone at 844-9876115. Additional updates about vaccine availability and other frequently asked questions are posted on the Sutter Health website, sutterhealth.org.