Kobe Bryant dead at 41

I wish the press gave as much respect to the other passengers.

 

college baseball coach, wife and daughter. haven't seen the other4 yet.

shocked, i couldn't help but harken back 40 years to monday night football

 

Respect?

TMZ had zero respect for next of kin in broadcasting his name so quickly (less than an hour after the crash) that such kin hear it first from the headlines before a police chaplain can reach them.

That is probably why we haven't heard the other names yet, authorities haven't been able to finish the notifications and let them have a few hours to prepare how to handle the onslaught of paparazzi.

 

There were fog issues, some first responder choppers were grounded by it for a while. But that wouldn't explain a witness report of it coming down rapidly. No additional speculations that I've heard.

 

I encountered Bryant briefly in a bar in Johannesburg 10 years ago; good for a random-stranger-fist-bump as he passed by.

Encrypted digital trunked radios were supposed to solve the scanner snoop problem. TMZ is suspected of retaining the services of someone very knowledgeable about the LAFD system.

 

amazing how tmz beats so many other news outlets to the punch. i used to think of them as people magazine types only.

 

anyone read if there was a pro pilot, or if kobe had a license?

 

if the weather was so bad that air rescue was grounded, why did that party take to the sky?

 

reminds me of jfk jr. you make your plans, alternate transportation doesn't work at the last moment, and over confidence in your abilities takes precidence over common sense. an all too human frailty.

 

How far the cabal has come since the days of People's Court

 

He had a pro pilot, operating under "special visual flight rules", different than regular VFR.

Not really, when word on the street suggests that they pay for insider tips where regular media doesn't pay.

 

the world we live in today

 

Although I loathe the NBA, Kobe seemed to go a little against the grain.
He was famously more accessible in LA preferring to wait in line at some local eateries, and he even reportedly helped some vics and directed traffic following an auto accident last December rather than looking the otha way.
You can tell much about a person, famous or not, by how they interact with their children and Kobe was also a (widely reported) devoted dad, which unfortunately resulted in the death of his second daughter (of 4.)
He was only married once, (at 21) and the remainder of his family, I'm told, was waiting for the helo to finish that last flight.
This means that, warts and all, he can beat me at something more important than just basketball.

Kobe was very proud also of his Olympic hardware (2 golds) and he had a book published.
Less well known was his philanthropic work which seemed to go above and beyond the amount necessary to shield his level of income from the maw of confiscatory taxes.....
Not many NBA players can speak at least 3 languages fluently nor do they have a statue called "Oscar" in their "I LOVE ME" room.

Much is being made of the response to the helo accident, but I'm thinking that any civil aviation crash resulting in the death of 9 souls would launch a robust investigation by the feds.


Rest in peace Kobe.
Perhaps.....if I'm lucky, I'll see you topside later.....

 

This one was more Stevie Ray Vaughan than Colin McRae.

 

Why is it so important for people to get news on an instant... at the cost of destroying people’s lives? Disgusting way to make a living, if you ask me.

 

It isn't important to people, just to TMZ's balance sheet.

 

Associated stock symbol would be T, looks like they're up a bit over the last 48 hours.

(TMZ is a Warnermedia property owned by AT&T)