The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to give the county’s fire and sheriff’s departments 45 days to report back its plans for training first responders on new policies that prevent them from taking unauthorized pictures of dead people while responding to a scene.

The vote comes after Supervisor Janice Hahn authored a similar motion back in August, shortly after a jury ordered Los Angeles County to pay Vanessa Bryant and Chris Chester $35 million for failing to prevent personnel from taking and sharing of photos of their deceased loved ones at the site of the 2020 helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven others.

“Our failure to prevent those photos from being taken hurt Vanessa Bryant and Chris Chester as well as LA County taxpayers who ultimately had to foot the bill of the massive settlements,” Hahn said. “It is important that have new policies for our first responders on the books, but those policies will only be as effective as the training that comes along with them. We need all our current first responders and every new hire to be educated about what these new policies mean and trained explicitly in what is expected of them.”

After the Los Angeles Times reported that deputies shared graphic photos of the helicopter crash, Assemblyman Mike Gipson, D-Carson, introduced a bill that would make it illegal for first responders to take unauthorized photos of deceased people at the scene of an accident or crime. In 2020, the bill was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Since then, the county’s first responders have been actively working to create new policies that address prohibited behavior regarding photographs and recordings at scenes where human remains are present, Hahn said in a press release.

The Sheriff’s Department adopted its new policies in July 2020 while the fire department is still working on finalizing its own by January 2023, according to Hahn.

Through the vote, the Board of Supervisors is giving the fire and sheriff’s departments 45 days to report back in writing how they plan to implement training on the new policies.

The report is expected to detail how each department plans to train both new hires and current employees on the new policies in a way that will provide all department members with clear guidance on the application of the new policies, Han said.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to reflect that the policies apply to the county’s fire and sheriff’s departments, not the city’s.

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