RIP Kobe Bryant

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If the Bryant's weren't on the helicopter this story would have vanished from the news faster than the deaths of 7 starving children in some remote corner of Africa in the last 5 minutes.

Nobody outside of America really cares about 7 random dead Americans, it's Kobe Bryant who has global clout.

It's sad all around, because there should never be a hierarchy of humans.

The only relevant part of the story
In August 2004, the accuser filed a civil lawsuit against Bryant over the incident. In March 2005, the two parties settled that lawsuit. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed to the public. The Los Angeles Times reported that legal experts estimated the settlement was more than $2.5 million.

SO why then are these female reporters so hell-bent on continuing this narrative of Kobe the rapist?? even to the extent of deleting a tribute to Kobe and his daughter and the other victims??

I also don't understand why the media are asking the plaintiff in the 2003 rape case to make a statement? I thought a financial settlement meant she was supposed to drop her case? is she planning to extract more money from the Bryant estate?

How come nobody here has asked how the women in question and rape victims of powerful popular men are feeling about all the adulation Kobe is getting?

Because the woman in question received a $2.5 M settlement which she happily accepted so her opinion about kobe Bryant means nothing anymore.

Basically she agreed to have sex with a celebrity, it became rough (Bryant pushed the limits) but it wasn't rape. The money equates to what she thought is sufficient to call it evens.

They both said later that they began kissing, but what happened in the next few minutes became the heart of the dispute. The woman told the police that Bryant had raped her. Bryant said they had consensual sex.

Prosecutors seemed to have a strong case. According to court documents, an examination of the woman at a hospital revealed a bruise on her neck and tears in her vaginal wall. Both her underwear and Bryant’s shirt were bloody. Bryant told the police he had not explicitly asked for consent.

Almost immediately the case against Bryant became a news media circus, the biggest celebrity prosecution since the O.J. Simpson trial. Quickly though, the accuser’s reputation came under attack. Bryant’s lawyer, Pamela Mackey, said the woman’s name in open court six times during one hearing — even though the police and court officials had tried to preserve her anonymity — and asked if her injuries could have been caused “by having sex with three men in three days.” Television crews camped outside the home of the accuser’s parents, and her name was leaked by the court system three times.

Like the Simpson case a decade before, the Bryant case quickly became about much more than what had happened in that hotel room. It was seen through the historical prism of white women falsely accusing black men of sexual violence (the woman in the Bryant case was white). At the same time, the case sparked commentary that perpetuated stereotypes about false accusations of rape.

After the case was dropped, Bryant issued a lengthy statement, apologizing to the woman and acknowledging her perspective of their encounter, which is farther than most public apologies go. “Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual,” he said in statement, “I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did.”

The CBS News chief called threats against journalist Gayle King “reprehensible” Saturday as backlash grew against rapper Snoop Dogg and others critical of King for an interview where she asked about a sexual assault charge against the late Kobe Bryant.

Snoop Dogg had threatened King online this week following her interview with WNBA player Lisa Leslie about Bryant, the former Los Angeles Lakers star killed in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26

CBS would not discuss the nature of any private threats against King. Her friend, Oprah Winfrey, said in an NBC interview that King had received death threats and was traveling with security.

The rapper had joined with others, including 50 Cent and Bill Cosby, in criticizing King for asking Leslie whether Bryant’s legacy had been complicated by the accusation that he raped a woman at a Colorado resort in 2003. Bryant said the two had consensual sex, but he later apologized for his behavior and settled a civil suit against him.

In a profane video posted on Instagram and shared on other social media platforms, Snoop Dogg criticized King for attacking “your people.” He told her to “back off ... before we come get you.”

King’s questions had attracted little notice as part of a wide-ranging interview shown on CBS This Morning. But then CBS — mistakenly, it said later — posted a video online that focused strictly on the discussion about the assault case.

King’s critics essentially voiced some variation of what Leslie answered — that the media should be more respectful of Bryant so soon after his death and not discuss this stain upon his record — although usually in sharper terms.

Besides her boss, other people have begun coming to King’s defense, including Sen. Cory Booker, former U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice and NBC morning show host Willie Geist.

“For those threatening her and inciting violence, stop it immediately,” the New Jersey senator tweeted. “This is unacceptable. We must do better.”

Rice, on Twitter, said Snoop Dogg’s video was despicable and she told him to back off.

“You come against Gayle King, you come against an army,” Rice wrote. “You will lose, and it won’t be pretty.”′

Geist, from the Today show and MSNBC’s Morning Joe, tweeted that “the threats against Gayle King for asking a fair question in the course of a long interview are absolutely disgusting. Gayle is one of the most thoughtful people in our business.”

New Yorker writer Jelani Cobb tweeted that there was a way to disagree with King’s questions “without lapsing into misogyny, threats and ignorance.”

In an essay posted on the web site The Undefeated, Morehouse College journalism professor David Dennis Jr. wondered why it was two black women — King and Leslie — who were the ones publicly wrestling with this aspect of Bryant's legacy.

“We, myself included, have to take time in our healing to try to understand why we either forgave Bryant or never bothered to hold him accountable,” Dennis wrote. “It’s fair to believe that the work Bryant put in for women in sports in the years since the rape allegation have shown true contrition and rehabilitation, but nothing will erase that night ... To demand silence over the case does an injustice to the victims of sexual violence as well as the work Bryant did to try to make it right.”