PAROLE DENIED FOR MAN INVOLVED IN KILLING COP.

Byline: DANA BARTHOLOMEW Staff Writer

The Mac-10 machine pistol rattled off a burst of gunfire, cutting down Los Angeles Police Department Detective Tom C. Williams.

By his side that fateful Halloween 21 years ago was his 6-year-old son, spared by an order from Dad to duck beneath the hail of bullets outside his Canoga Park church school.

For his part in the conspiracy to kill a cop, Voltaire Alphonse Williams -- no relation to the detective -- was given a 25-years-to-life sentence. On Wednesday, a state parole board ordered that the 43-year-old inmate be kept behind bars at least two more years.

``All murders are sad,'' Los Angeles County prosecutor Lawrence Morrison said by phone from Solano State Prison in Vacaville, where Williams is serving his time. ``But it's especially bad when a policeman is assassinated for just doing his job.

Board of Parole Hearings member Linda Shelton and Deputy Commissioner Barbara Moore denied Williams parole.

More than 50 residents had submitted letters opposing his release -- ``the strongest community opposition I've ever seen,'' Morrison said.

Williams' attorney, Marc Norton, had argued that his client had taken responsibility for his role in the slaying and was filled with remorse. Norton could not be reached Wednesday.

For law enforcement officials, the shooting represents one of the most heinous examples in memory of payback against a cop.

``Murdering someone for doing his job is incomprehensible,'' said Peggy Fiderio, who works at the LAPD Scientific Investigation Division and opposed Williams' parole. ``Murdering someone in front of his son is animalistic.''

For family members, it represented the loss of a devoted husband and father of two. An hour before the shooting, he had called his wife, Norma, to say how much he loved her.

``Over the years, Halloween has been a horrible reminder,'' said Norma Williams, who recently moved from West Hills to a state she asked not be identified. ``We hate it. We just try to grit our teeth and get through it.''

She said her daughter, Susan, then a 17-year-old student at Canoga Park High, now attends the funerals of slain police officers. Her son, Ryan, still struggles with guilt about not being able to save his dad.

In the late afternoon of Halloween 1985, 42-year-old Thomas Charles Williams was shot eight times as he picked up Ryan at Faith Baptist Church School. The detective, who had turned down an appointment at West Point to become a cop, had testified hours earlier in a robbery trial against his assailant.

The triggerman in the killing, Daniel Steven Jenkins of North Hollywood, was sentenced to death.

For protecting his son, the LAPD issued Williams a posthumous Medal of Valor.

dana.bartholomew(at)dailynews.com

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Norma Williams, and her children, Ryan and Susan, are shown Feb.21, 1986. They are the family of Los Angeles police Detective Tom C. Williams, who was gunned down on Halloween 21 years ago.

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