Widow of victim in fatal subway shooting to sue MTA for $28M over leaked scene photos — just like Kobe Bryant case

The widow of a man fatally shot on a Brooklyn subway train plans to sue the MTA for allegedly leaking crime-scene photos of her husband — in a move similar to Vanessa Bryant suing over the helicopter-crash photos of late hubby Kobe Bryant and their daughter.

Jakeba Dockery, 42, filed a $28.5 million notice of claim with the city Friday accusing MTA workers of snapping pictures of husband Richard Henderson, 45, laying in a pool of his own blood on a Manhattan-bound No. 3 train before the beloved school crossing guard and grandfather was declared dead at the hospital later that day, Jan. 14.

“It makes my heart drop,” Dockery told The Post of seeing the photos of her mortally wounded spouse. “I can’t believe my husband is gone. To see him in his own blood, it hurts me.”

Henderson — a Crown Heights man who shared three children and two grandchildren with Dockery — tragically died trying to break up a fight over loud music between his killer, who is still on the loose, and another man before he was shot in the back and shoulder.

Dockery found out from a friend that the photos “were publicly being disseminated on social media and the like,” according to the notice of claim — the legal precursor to bringing a lawsuit against a municipal agency.

In fact, a 10-year Metropolitan Transportation Authority employee allegedly shared with the friend the pictures, which the worker had been sent by another MTA colleague, the notice alleges.

Dockery plans to sue the transit agency for $28.5 million — the same amount Vanessa Bryant, 41, was awarded in 2023 after photos of the January 2020 helicopter crash that killed her NBA legend husband Kobe Bryant, 41, and their daughter Gianna, 13, were leaked by the Los Angeles sheriff and fire department employees.

An MTA employee “took photos of Richard Henderson … while he was alive and laying in a pool of his own blood,” Dockery’s notice claims, noting that the photos had no “legitimate governmental purpose.”

Dockery told The Post she was sent one of the graphic photos of Henderson — whom she was with for 30 years and married to for 20 years — just a day after he died. She said she also saw the image on someone’s story on Instagram and heard from others that the photo was on another person’s Facebook story as well.

“I was devastated,” said Dockery — who is a case manager for veterans. “He’s a hero, and the image of him on the floor with blood circulating — it was not good for me to see and for my children to see.

“That image is always in my head,” the widow said of her husband, who was a crossing guard for a private school in Chelsea for 10 years on a street that will soon be named after him.

Dockery said their three kids, ages 15, 20 and 25, are all on social media and saw the grim images.

“It was hard to explain their father on the train with his own blood,” the mom said.

In fact, her 20-year-old daughter is forced to take the No. 3 train every day to school, Dockery said.

“She cries on the train. I don’t know what to tell her anymore,” the mom said. “It’s a trigger.”

While Dockery sends her 15-year-old daughter to school in an Uber, the mother can’t come up with the money to also send the older daughter to school that way.

“I can’t afford to put her in an Uber every day, so she is forced to get on that train,” Dockery explained.

Because of the “unnecessary taking and sharing images of the deceased as he was dying or in death … Dockery has suffered, and continues to suffer, severe emotional distress,” the notice of claim alleges.

And because of the MTA employee’s actions, Dockery was deprived “of her substantive due process right to control the physical remains, memory, and death images of her deceased husband,” the notice charges.

The widow says that since Henderson wasn’t declared dead until he reached the hospital, he may have still been alive while he was bleeding on the ground.

“When I got the death certificate, [it said] he died in the hospital,” Dockery said. “So when he was on that ground … my husband was alive.

“He heard what was going on around him,” she said. “They rendered no aid. [Instead,] they took a picture of him.”

The legal notice alleges negligence against the MTA for failing to “establish a policy or procedure addressing the treatment of human remains” and for failing to properly investigate and discipline employees for taking these pictures and sharing them.

Sanford Rubenstein and Mark Shirian, lawyers for Dockery and the estate of her husband, said through the planned lawsuit that they will be able to take the sworn depositions of the MTA workers involved to determine everyone who took photos, how many photos were taken and everyone who distributed them.

“Just like the family of the late Kobe Bryant was entitled to damages from Los Angeles County to resolve a lawsuit over deputies and firefighters sharing grisly photos of the late NBA superstar and his 13-year-old daughter killed in a 2020 helicopter crash, the family of Richard Henderson — a real life hero here in New York City — is entitled to damages from the appropriate government agency for the unauthorized release and publication by employees of grisly photos of him at death’s door,” Rubenstein and Shirian said in a statement to The Post.

In February 2023, Vanessa Bryant was awarded the massive sum in a settlement with the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors after first responders took gruesome photos of the mangled remains of her five-time NBA champion husband and of their daughter.

Responders then shared the images they took with employees of the LA County sheriff’s and fire departments — photos which were also seen by some of their spouses.

The father and daughter had been traveling to Gianna’s youth basketball camp, which the retired Los Angelees Laker superstar was going to coach. Seven others on board the chopper also perished in the crash near Calabasas, Calif.

Vanessa Bryant won a $15 million jury verdict in August 2022 but settled for the larger figure to resolve any potential future claims from her surviving daughters Natalia, 21, Bianka, 7, and Capri, 4.

While Dockery said she thinks a similar award is warranted in her case, she noted, “No dollar amount will bring my husband back.”

But Dockery said she hopes for a measure of justice for herself, and she hopes the legal action will bring about change in the MTA so that no one else will be forced to go through what she endured.

A rep with the MTA declined to comment Friday.