Los Angeles (AFP)

Vanessa Bryant has initiated legal action against the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for her responsibility in distributing unauthorized photographs of the fatal helicopter crash scene to her husband Kobe Bryant and their daughter Gianna.

People magazine, which obtained the complaint, specifies that the widow of the legend of the Lakers requests damages for the "emotional distress and mental anguish" caused.

The legal proceedings are against eight agents from the sheriff's department, who took and shared these photos of the site of the January 26 crash northwest of Los Angeles that killed seven others.

"No less than eight officers were on the scene taking pictures of the children, parents (...) on their mobile phones. As the sheriff's department will admit later, they were not authorized to take these photos. They took them for their own purposes, "said the complaint.

The only people authorized to take photos of the scene were investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and members of the medical examiner's office.

Sheriff Alex Villanueva admitted the facts in March after the Los Angeles Times reported the photos and the TMZ news site reported the complaint by a bartender after seeing an agent show the images to another customer.

Villanueva then claimed that the agents involved had been identified and also made sure that the photos were destroyed.

At that time, Vanessa Bryant had requested that an internal investigation be carried out within the sheriff's office and that they result in sanctions for all those involved.

"Rather than formally investigate to determine the extent of the dissemination of these photos and contain their propagation, the management of the sheriff's department is said to have told the agents that they would not face any disciplinary proceedings if they simply deleted the photos, "said the file.

It is also stated that Vanessa Bryant was informed that some of the photos have since surfaced on the internet.

"This procedure is only intended to enforce accountability, protect victims and ensure that no one will face this type of conduct in the future," a spokesman for the Bryant family told People.

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