Vanessa Bryant is suing Los Angeles County for reportedly disseminating photographs of the accident.
“I expected them to have more compassion,” she told jurors during her invasion of privacy trial.
Mrs Bryant, 40, is seeking undisclosed millions of dollars in damages for her emotional trauma.
Her husband, basketball superstar Kobe Bryant, 41, daughter Gianna, 13, and 6 friends of the family died in January 2020 when their helicopter crashed in Thousand Oaks, California.
The Los Angeles Times reported that county workers took pics at the scene of the crash and decided to share them with others, which infuriated the victims’ families.
Last November, the county agreed to pay $2.5 million (£2.1 million) to two families that lost family members in the accident, but Mrs Bryant refused to accept it.
Chris Chester, who lost his wife Sarah and daughter Payton in the crash, joined her in filing a federal lawsuit.
Mrs Bryant, who was sobbing on the witness stand on Friday, recounted being at home alongside her other kids when she read the LA Times article.
“I bolted out of the house and I ran to the side of the house so the girls couldn’t see me. I wanted to run… down the block and just scream,” she said.
Mrs Bryant stated that she was “blindsided, devastated, hurt, and betrayed” by the headlines of the leak and that she “[lives] in fear every day of… having these images pop up” on social networking sites.
“I don’t ever want to see these photographs,” she said. “I want to remember my husband and my daughter the way they were.”
Jurors heard how sheriff’s deputies and fire crews took grisly cell phone pictures at the scene and had shown them to others, including at a tavern and a gala event.
Mrs Bryant was the prosecution’s final witness, and the defense will now present its case.
