The controversial Halloween display of an effigy of Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin hanging by a noose outside a home near Los Angeles has been taken down, local authorities said on Thursday.

The people who hung the figure from the roof of their house "began to realise what they had done caused a little more of a reaction than they had hoped for", said spokesperson for the sheriff of Los Angeles Steve Whitmore.

Many Americans decorate their homes with ghoulish displays of monsters, witches and ghosts for the annual Halloween holiday.

But Chad Michael Morrisette, resident of West Hollywood, went a bit further by hanging a figure wearing Palin's trademark red jacket, glasses, high heels and a wig.

West Hollywood Mayor Jeffrey Prang — who previously defended the residents' legal right to hang the figure, but said he opposed political speech that references violence — said he worked to get it taken down.

"I tried to appeal to their reason and logic and they agreed," Prang told local TV station Fox 11.

The incident has prompted furor in the US media, and on Wednesday dozens of demonstrators gathered outside Morrisette's house to protest the display.

Some 500 000 people are expected in the gay enclave on Friday for one of the biggest Halloween carnivals in the country.

AFP