Awards Ceremony : 2 Officers’ Widows Share Grim Spotlight

Two San Fernando Valley women, both widows of Los Angeles police officers, shared a poignant moment in the spotlight Thursday when they accepted awards--and standing ovations--from the LAPD and friends.

Edith McCree of Sylmar, whose husband, Detective Arleigh McCree, was killed last Saturday, had expected to be a proud bystander when awards were handed out at the Los Angeles Police Department’s annual Recognition Banquet. Her husband had been scheduled to receive an award for meritorious service.

Instead, she accepted her the award herself.

“It’s very hard for me, him not sitting next to me,” McCree said during a press briefing after the banquet at the Police Academy in Elysian Park. “But it’s nice to know that our lives were complete; nothing was left undone.”

McCree, who fought back tears, said she is still in shock over the deaths of her husband and Officer Ronald Ball as they were trying to defuse a pipe bomb at a North Hollywood house.

She was comforted by another policeman’s widow, Norma Williams of Canoga Park. Williams’ husband, Detective Thomas C. Williams, was shot to death on Halloween as he was picking up the couple’s son at a church day-care center.

Norma Williams and the couple’s daughter, Susan, 17, were at the banquet to receive the Parker Citation, awarded to officers who die in the line of duty.

Before the news conference, Norma Williams hugged Edith McCree, and the two women talked quietly with each other.

“I have to say this publicly,” Norma Williams told reporters. “I admire her for being here.”