UPDATE: Mayor concerned after drug arrest at school board member’s home
RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR) - The husband of a Richmond School Board member has been charged after at least one marijuana plant was seized at the couple's home.
Police sources said officers entered the home in the 2100 block of North Avenue to seize marijuana around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday after officers received a tip about marijuana being grown there.
Neighbors said there were at least four police cruisers parked along the street.
The address given by police matched the address Richmond's 6th District School Board Member Shonda Harris-Muhammed provided to the State Board of Elections.
Forty-two-year-old Demetrius Muhammed, of the 2100 block of North Avenue, was charged with one felony count of manufacturing marijuana.
A neighbor told CBS 6 that a plant was seized from the back porch.
Richmond police seize pot plant. Pic via Mo Karnage, with Wingnut Anarchist Collective. Click to their site for more pics of the "bust."
Charles Bayard, a neighbor, said he asked police what happened when so many police pulled up at the residence.
"They said there were drugs in the house," Bayard said, adding that officers told him there was a "weed plant."
"We went around to the back and looked up on the back porch and sure enough there was a weed plant," he said.
CBS 6 asked the neighbor "whose house is it?" and Bayard responded that it was the house of the "city board lady that they found out wasn't a doctor."
A friend of the family and former school board member Chandra Smith said that "it's a personal, family issue," and that "Shonda's family would like privacy."
In front of the home is a sign warning that the area is a "Drug Free Zone." Generally penalties are harsher for possession charges within such an identified zone.
On the social media network Instagram, a north side neighbor captured a picture of the police bust, and questioned how a school board member might be treated in such a circumstance.
This is a developing story….
