RJI's Rick Shaw shares his account of White House celebration following announcement of bin Laden's death

"Columbia man witnessed spontaneous White House celebration," Columbia Missourian, May 2, 2011.

Rick Shaw, director of the Pictures of the Year International (POYi) competition at MU's Reynolds Journalism Institute, was in Washington this past weekend for a POYI-sponsored event. He witnessed the gathering outside the White House when news broke of Osama bin Laden's death. This is his account.

The incessant drizzle in Washington, D.C., ended at dusk, and by midnight, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. was deluged with waves of red, white and blue emotion.

Only a few hours earlier on Sunday, hockey fans trickled down F Street, disappointed that their Washington Capitals had not triumphed. But President Barack Obama's unexpected announcement to the world that U.S. forces had killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden energized the downtown atmosphere.

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