'R.I.P. Osama' Appears on O.C. Freeway

The day after al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was killed in a raid in Pakistan, anti-American graffiti was found Monday scrawled on a freeway sound wall in Orange County.

The graffiti  depicting an upside-down U.S. flag and 3-foot-high black spray-painted letters that read "RIP Osama Forever,'' was found along the 405 Freeway in Westminster,  police Cpl. Van Woodson said.

Above the flag, the vandal spray-painted, "Unamerican,'' Woodson said.

"The officer who took the report said it was pretty detailed,'' so investigators hoped there were witnesses, Woodson said.

Westminster police alerted the FBI and Homeland Security officials, Woodson said.

"Anything of a suspicious nature that may involve some extremist message we do share up the chain,'' Woodson said.

Southland law enforcement agencies were on heightened alert in response to the death of bin Laden.

Orange County sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said there were no incidents, aside from the vandalism in Westminster, in Orange County on Monday, but sheriff's deputies have extra phone lines open to field calls.

In Anaheim, the Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights organization, welcomed news of bin Laden's death.

"We join our fellow citizens in welcoming the announcement that Osama bin Laden has been eliminated as a threat to our nation and the world through the actions of American military personnel,'' according to a statement from the group.

As we have stated repeatedly since the 9/11 terror attacks, bin Laden never represented Muslims or Islam. In fact, in addition to the killing of thousands of Americans, he and al-Qaida caused the deaths of countless Muslims worldwide.''

—City News Service