![]() Imbrenda also denied a claim by Weireter that his girlfriend excitedly called her over to look at the photos. "I believe she is mistaken," Imbrenda replied. "You think she made it up?" Jackson asked. When asked by Jerome Jackson, an attorney representing Chester, whether he used the photos "like a party trick," Imbrenda said, "Absolutely not." ![]() He also said he didn't know a victim's family member was present at the event. He said he visited the site a day after the crash, by which time any identifiable body parts were either covered or removed from the scene. Imbrenda denied showing photos of Kobe Bryant's remains or even having photos of his body. Weireter characterized it as being like a party trick, testifying she saw one firefighter break away from the group, saying, "I can't believe I just looked at Kobe's burnt up body, and now I'm about to eat."ĭuring his testimony Wednesday, Imbrenda repeatedly stressed that human remains weren't the subjects of the photos he had, and they instead were "debris field photographs that contain human remains in them" and "overall photographs of the incident." Last week, Weireter testified in court that she saw Imbrenda share the photos of the crash site and Bryant's remains at the event. Weireter is the cousin of Keri Altobelli, who, along with her husband John and daughter Alyssa, died in the same helicopter crash. The awards show incident came to light after the wife of an LA firefighter, Luella Weireter, who was with the group during cocktail hour, filed an official complaint with a battalion chief at a county fire station in Malibu. In addition to photos taken by Imbrenda the day after the crash, he testified that he received dozens of photos of the site from several people - including from phone numbers he didn't recognize - since he asks personnel to send him incident photos as a part of his job.įire captain denies showing images of Bryant "I felt the discussion was appropriate, the setting was not," he said. In retrospect, I feel that that wasn't a good decision, it wasn't my best judgment," Imbrenda said.īut Imbrenda maintained he was sharing what he considered to be educational details with other public information officers. "I did not believe I was violating any policy. In February 2020, while at the Radio and Television News Association of Southern California's Golden Mike awards, a discussion began among several fire department public information officers about the response that day and Imbrenda's role in it, the captain testified.ĭuring the conversation, Imbrenda said he pulled out his phone and showed some photos from the crash - mostly of the debris field, he told the court, but some of the images did have human remains. Imbrenda served as a public information officer the day of the crash. Both he and Bryant allege they live in fear of the photos re-surfacing online. Christopher Chester, whose wife and daughter also died in the crash, is a co-plaintiff. In court Wednesday, a Los Angeles County fire captain denied using photos from the helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant and eight others as a "party trick" when he showed the images during an awards ceremony cocktail hour.įire Captain Tony Imbrenda's testimony was part of a federal civil lawsuit brought by Bryant's widow, Vanessa Bryant, that alleges LA County invaded her privacy and failed to fully contain the spread of the photos, inflicting emotional distress.
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