Community Has Mixed Feelings at News of bin Laden's Death

As the news of Osama bin Laden’s death spread Monday morning, the mood around Birmingham could be summed up by one word: relief.

“This is a great day for America,” Birmingham Mayor Gordon Rinschler said. “No matter who you are, no matter what your politics … it’s terrific.”

President Barack Obama . The mastermind of the 9/11 attacks was killed during an attack Sunday at the compound where he was hiding in Pakistan. No Americans were harmed in the strike, Obama said, and bin Laden's body was taken into U.S. custody and later buried at sea. Islamic custom is to bury the body within 24 hours.

Birmingham residents continued their day as usual Monday, though the topic of bin Laden’s death continued to pop up in large gatherings.

“I just hope there is not a retaliation strike,” 16-year-old Nick Resnick, a student, said after an assembly at the school Monday morning. Resnick helped organize the assembly after several racist slurs were found at the school in the last two weeks. However, when Resnick and his friends gathered after the program Monday, it was the bin Laden incident that was on everyone’s minds.

Jennifer Flowers of Berkley agreed with Resnik. Speaking out on Facebook, Flowers said didn’t necessarily feel safer Monday morning, despite bin Laden’s death. “...now he is a martyr and I fear Al Quaida is still powerful,” she wrote on the Birmingham Patch Facebook page. “Still, a great achievement though.”

Nancy Eshelby, had a simple answer when asked if she now felt safe: “Sadly, no,” she wrote on Facebook.

Bringing back memories of 9/11

Bin Laden's killing comes nearly 10 years after the attacks that killed thousands at the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and in a Pennsylvania field where one of the hijacked jetliners crashed. The attacks led to military action in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere that continues today.

Though Mayor Rinschler has lived his adult life in Michigan, he said he was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Long Island. One of his acquaintances from high school died that day in one of the World Trade Center towers, he said.

Rinschler was returning home from a trip to New York on Sunday night, he said, but didn’t hear the news until Monday morning.

“I have a mixture of feelings,” he said. “We in the Midwest, we’ve been more insulated to a lot of pain from 9/11. In New York, it’s completely different."

For state Rep. Chuck Moss (R-Birmingham), bin Laden's death also brought him back to 9/11. "I had just been to New York (before 9/11)," Moss said. "I remember flying out and you look down ... and there were (the twin towers). You took them for granted."

Alhough Moss didn't know anyone who died that day, his sister lives in Brooklyn and carried water to the firefighters in the days following the attack. The news of bin Laden's death, he said, reminds him of everyone involved during those days — the survivors, the firefighters, New Yorkers and those who perished.

"I think this is a good time to pause and remember the 3,000 murdered Americans," he said.

Rinschler agreed. "This is justice well served," he said.

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