R.I.P. Kobe Bryant

[Woofers and Tweeters]

1 hour ago, USNRET said:

I had a Rand McNally spread out in the front seat.

😮

 

1 hour ago, USNRET said:

I believe the pilot made an error on the flight path by believing he was following the correct highway when in fact he got low in order to comply,

 

[polizzio]

This article (well written at that) discusses several observations USNRET mentioned earlier. The pilot of KB's aircraft was a flight instructor and had > 8000 hours of flight time. The article mentions the atmos conditions were so poor @ the time police helos had been grounded. From viewing overhead video on youtube of the impact site from a news helo, the impact was devastating. Only really identifiable piece is a section of the tail and a piece of the main structure. Debris field sure appears like the helo flew right into the side of a hill, with considerable velocity.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/pilot-bryant-helicopter-tried-avoid-060826690.html

 

[DizRotus]

As a former prosecuting attorney, it is not surprising that the criminal sexual assault charges were dismissed.  Kobe has no criminal record related to the allegations of a 19 year-old hotel employee.  There were many aspects to the complainant’s statements that undermined her credibility (see Wikipedia).  Couple that with the complainant’s unwillingness to testify and it’s not a surprise the criminal case was DISMISSED.  There was no plea to a lesser charge.  There was NO CRIMINAL CONVICTION.

 

Kobe was guilty, by his own admission, of sex with a woman other than his wife.  That betrayal of his marriage vow was a tremendous character flaw, but not a crime.

 

As a former civil attorney who defended civil litigation, it is not surprising that Kobe agreed to a substantial out of court settlement with the plaintiff.   Such a settlement supports characterizations of Kobe’s moral character as less than stellar.  If death were the appropriate penalty for all who have moral flaws, as Scrooge opined, the “surplus population” would be greatly reduced.

[dtel]

14 minutes ago, DizRotus said:

Kobe was guilty, by his own admission, of sex with a woman other than his wife.

There are also some people who are willing until afterwards when there could be a payday.

I have no idea but it has happened before.

[polizzio]

46 minutes ago, DizRotus said:

 

 

Kobe was guilty, by his own admission, of sex with a woman other than his wife.  That betrayal of his marriage vow was a tremendous character flaw, but not a crime.

 

 

 

KB purchased his wife a 4 million dollar diamond ring to make amends. She was all good after receiving the ring.

[DizRotus]

3 hours ago, polizzio said:

 

KB purchased his wife a 4 million dollar diamond ring to make amends. She was all good after receiving the ring.

 

I’m sure she would trade the ring for her daughter, Gianna, if only that were possible.

[Woofers and Tweeters]

5 hours ago, DizRotus said:

Couple that with the complainant’s unwillingness to testify and it’s not a surprise the criminal case was DISMISSED.

No one can blame her for taking the money and shutting up about it. From what I read, it was not consensual sex. I have no axe to grind. I feel very sorry for everyone's losses.  

[polizzio]

12 minutes ago, Woofers and Tweeters said:

No one can blame her for taking the money and shutting up about it. From what I read, it was not consensual sex. I have no axe to grind. I feel very sorry for everyone's losses.  

 

Read this article, I believe the 19 yo. There was physical and DNA evidence. Something or someone made her go away.  https://www.thedailybeast.com/kobe-bryants-disturbing-rape-case-the-dna-evidence-the-accusers-story-and-the-half-confession

[DizRotus]

Don’t misunderstand when I say the accuser’s credibility was compromised.  That is not to say she was not telling the truth.  I do not know if there was consent.  But, it would be a difficult case to win a conviction.

 

Women have the right to say NO at any time.  A prostitute can be raped, but I would not want to try to convince a jury of that.

[K5SS]

It’s hard for any of us mere mortals to imagine the amount of tail being thrown at professional athletes of Kobe’s stature. Let’s face it, he’s probably in the top 15 athletes of all time, across all sports. 
 

A friend of mine makes all the travel arrangements for a large professional sports franchise. Apparently there are tons of girls that call around hotels and follow the athlete social media to see where teams are staying. There’s a name for those girls, occasionally guys, but that name can’t be shared on a sophisticated forum like this one. 
 

Unfortunately, we will never know what happened in that hotel room. Only two people really know and one of them just passed.

 

The Internet is full of armchair life coaches that get excited at the thought of dragging someone successful through the mud. We should look at these types of people with sadness as something in their life isn’t going the way they wanted and they spend their days projecting this unhappiness online. What makes things worse for them is the fact that by making terrible posts, it makes them even unhappier. As a society, we just need to ignore those people as much as possible or try to figure out a way to

help them. 

 

Did he rape her? Did she hook up with him to extort millions? Who really knows.
 

Both are absolutely horrible scenarios but I wouldn’t put either past people I don’t personally know. The 15 minutes of time I spent looking into it, clearly isn’t enough For me to to cast any kind of judgement. 
 

One thing’s for sure, Kobe seemed to be contributing to his community in a big way, more than I will likely be able to contribute. 
 

I am with you about the other members of the crash though. Took the media a full day to tell some of the stories of the other passengers but that might have been so law enforcement had time to notify the families. There’s not nearly as much money in reporting on the other 8 people. Very sad but true.

 

As eluded to earlier in this thread,  the main stream media only cares about clicks and money. We are all waking up to this though and getting our news elsewhere. Main stream media is greedy and is responsible for creating this massive divide but I believe their time is numbered.

 

Whew! I guess I was holding that in. Haha

 

 

[OO1]

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[DizRotus]

If all morally bankrupt individuals were eliminated, Elden @dtel would be the only one left to be President.

[WMcD]

USNRET is probably correct.

 

WMcD

[polizzio]

@K5SS

 

After giving it more thought overnight, I agree with you. Only two people know for sure, that is a fact. And thinking about motives, could be a 19 yo young woman working as a hotel receptionist might have seen an opportunity to capitalize on KB's popularity and success, and manipulate the events that unfolded. 

The past doesn't matter now, and anything more is simply conjecture.

[JJkizak]

Almost seems as if the pilot was rolling the dice.

JJK

[Dave1290]

A sports writer friend of mine posted this story on the typical cluster f*0k when things like this happen now days.  Sad some reporting agencies have stooped to this level of news reporting.  Getting the scoop is one thing but handling things in a proper respectful way is another thing now days.

 

Now that two days have passed since Kobe Bryant's sudden and shocking death, I wanted to weigh in by evaluating the media's collective performance of the tragedy. For starters, celebrity-driven website TMZ broke the story ahead of every other major news outlet, not at all caring whether the victims' families, including Vanessa Bryant, had been notified. The website reported the news to the world just one hour and 37 minutes after the doomed helicopter crashed into the mountain, and at that point it is likely that none of the five families of the nine victims had been notified. The public may wonder how TMZ possibly knew so early. Knowing how it operates with correspondents almost everywhere in the greater L.A. area, I am guessing they had hired someone to try to interview Kobe at his Mamba Academy in Thousand Oaks, waiting his arrival with other youth basketball players and their parents -- because Kobe was there the day before and said he would return Sunday for his daughter‘s games that day. As soon as everyone there realized the helicopter had not arrived as scheduled, and after the initial report over a police scanner that a helicopter was down just miles away, TMZ executives put two-and-two together and went with the story in order to report it first, not caring whether relatives had been notified. After all, this wasn’t a president or public official where the public’s right to know came first.

Secondly, ABC inexcusably soon reported that all four of Bryant's daughters were on board the helicopter. Fortunately, by that time, Vanessa Bryant obviously knew that wasn't true since she surely was with the couple's other three daughters at the time. And ESPN, along with ABC which is owned by the same corporation, also reported that former Laker Rick Fox was among the victims. Fox' family had to tweet that he was with them and very much alive. But can you imagine the feeling of Fox' extended family and friends who had no idea whether it was true? And finally, every outlet reported for several hours there were five victims when sadly it turned out to be nine. I have no idea how they botched this so badly, other than they copycatted TMZ's initial report.

Also, I do not think enough airtime has been spent on the other seven victims in addition to Kobe and his daughter. Four other families have been devastated, including one in which both parents (Orange Coast College baseball coach John Altobelli who had his own lengthy and successful career in sports, his wife and daughter) also had died, but that is the media/celebrity-driven world in which we live. Bryant was world famous while the other eight victims were not. On the flip side, the many reflections of Bryant's life and career on ESPN have been poignant and redeeming. However, when it came to the breaking news, the media collectively failed miserably. It failed in its accuracy and most importantly, it failed by not displaying its humanity. And humanity and doing what is right -- even for the media -- should always supersede the ultra-competitive business of doing it first. It didn't in this case -- and that is a tragedy in itself.

[CECAA850]

I heard yesterday that TMZ actually found out about the crash from the Lakers.  It was a topic of conversation on the local ESPN radio station.  They surmised that Vanessa had been called before them.

[Dave1290]

That's possible if a stringer was there waiting and called in.  TMZ would call the Lakers and ask and could have got that response but I doubt they would confirm it.  It''s possible someone knew but they would have taken a major credibility hit had it not been true.  Assumption is never good in a case like that.  How'd they know there were no survivors?  First they went w/5 as a number THEN later the on scene  report was released and it became 9 so SOMEone reported that, which is a MAJOR error in fact journalistically.  Just a crazy nuts situation.

[polizzio]

A couple of network reporters have been suspended because they reported that all of KB's children were on the helo and had died. They ran with info which had not been verified. Read the article on yahoo earlier today.

 

https://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2020/01/30/matt-gutman-suspended-abc-news-kobe-bryant-helicopter-crash

[dtel]

On 1/28/2020 at 8:04 PM, Randyh said:

you would have made  an exceptional defense lawyer ,

 

On 1/28/2020 at 9:17 PM, DizRotus said:

If all morally bankrupt individuals were eliminated, Elden @dtel would be the only one left to be President.

We would all be in trouble if it got down to that.

 

But I could think of a few changes most people would agree on, you think the news reporting is bad now, I would keep them twice as busy and it would all be true for a change.