Osama bin Laden's Death: One Year Later

[This story originally appeared at 12:08 a.m. on May 2, 2011 on Sherman Oaks Patch.]

Osama bin Laden has been killed by U.S. troops in Pakistan, according to an announcement by President Obama.

At Fire Station 88 on Sepulveda Boulevard in Sherman Oaks Sunday evening, firefighters were standing outside next to the 9-11 Memorial Fountain. The memorial contains both part of a girder from the World Trade Center and a block of stone from the Pentagon.

James and Erin Smith came by to light a candle, lay flowers, and remember the fallen. Erin Smith had served in the military for six years, with some of that time spent in Iraq, and spoke of her feelings upon hearing that bin Laden was dead.

"After a little while it just kind of seemed like nothing was happening, like we weren't going to get him and it was really just kind of disheartening and hard to see," she said.

With bin Laden dead, she expressed her relief that "he can't hurt anybody else ever again."