Vanessa Bryant rips L.A. County sheriff’s call for LeBron James to double reward in deputy shooting
Vanessa Bryant is blasting Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva for challenging NBA superstar LeBron James to “step up” and double the reward offered in the Saturday shooting of two deputies.
It was during a Monday interview with KABC radio that Villanueva publicly suggested James — a Lakers player, philanthropist and influential voice in the Black Lives Matter movement — should match the $175,000 reward offered for the arrest of the gunman.
Bryant, the widow of Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, quickly weighed in by using her popular Instagram account to make clear she’s praying for the two injured deputies but frustrated with Villanueva.
“How can he talk about trusting the system? His sheriff’s dept. couldn’t be trusted to secure Kobe Bryant’s helicopter crash scene, his deputies took and shared graphic photos of crash victims,” read a message from a Twitter user that Bryant reposted in her Instagram stories.
“He shouldn’t be challenging LeBron James to match a reward or to ‘step up to the plate.’ He couldn’t even ‘step up to the plate’ and hold his deputies accountable for photographing dead children,” read a second tweet from Twitter user Elan Maree that Bryant also reposted to Instagram.
Bryant, who reportedly filed a claim against Villanueva’s department over the photo scandal, then posted another image reminding her 13.5 million followers that a total of eight deputies are under scrutiny for allegedly sharing graphic images from the Jan. 26 helicopter crash site.
She further shared photos of the eight passengers killed in the accident, including one of her 13-year-old daughter Gianna.
“Not all deputies are bad apples. Prayers for the 2 deputies that were shot,” Bryant said in a final post in the series shared late Monday.
The two deputies critically injured in ambush attack were sitting in their parked police vehicle in Compton when an armed assailant walked up to the passenger’s side window and opened fire.
The deputies — a man and a woman — were struck in the head and face. They were rushed to a nearby hospital and are expected to survive.
A GoFundMe fundraiser for the deputies, started by sheriff’s detective Keegan McInnis, raised more than $431,000 as of Tuesday evening.
James, meanwhile, has not publicly responded to Villanueva’s comments.
He previously condemned the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and has spoken out against the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
