(Updated at 1:45 p.m. on Oct. 12) Alexandria City Public Schools has aligned with Virginia law in its stance against marijuana.
Students who possess, use or distribute marijuana within 1,000 feet of an ACPS school, bus stop or bus can now be expelled, according to policy revisions reviewed last week by the School Board. Marijuana was not previously listed as a banned substance.
Alexandria’s City Hall (301 King Street) will be illuminated in purple this week to commemorate those who have died from drug overdoses and to raise awareness of substance abuse recovery.
Alexandria, in particular, has been hit with an increase in drug overdoses and deaths. According to the release:
Helenia Bragg had few options.
After getting arrested last year in her Old Town home for possession with intent to distribute Schedule II drugs, the Alexandria native faced a minimum of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $500,000. Bragg previously spent the greater part of 20 years incarcerated for three possession charges, and had been clean and sober for eight years before falling off the wagon.
An 18-year-old Alexandria man suspected of robbing a juvenile of his Nike Air Jordan sneakers and bicycle at gunpoint was tracked down by the victim on social media, according to police.
The victim was robbed on April 10, in the 4500 block of 31st Street South, per a recently released search warrant affidavit. He told police that he was walking his Mongoose BMX bike up a hill when two suspects approached him.
Alexandria man Reza Hashemi, 34, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for selling fentanyl that lead to the death of an Alexandria woman.
Hashemi was convicted of distributing 400 grams of fentanyl in Northern Virginia. Hashemi was the suspect in one 2020 overdose of a 22-year-old man, identified as J.V., in Vienna.
Alexandria teens at the city’s Sheltercare facility are hosting a car wash today where they’ll discuss the fentanyl issues that have devastated Alexandria.
The community car wash is scheduled to run from 3-5 p.m. today (Tuesday) at Sheltercare (200 S. Whiting Street), a program administered by the Juvenile Detention Commission of Northern Virginia to “provide services and stabilization for youth.”
Four male juveniles were arrested after a brief chase from a stolen car in the West End on Tuesday afternoon, prompting four schools to go on lockdown, according to the Alexandria Police Department.
The incident occurred at around noon near the 1400 block of N. Beauregard Street. Police recovered a handgun from one of the suspects, according to dispatch reports.
Alexandria Police arrested two men last month and, according to affidavits, recovered a large number of illegal narcotics, cash and other items.
The investigation into the suspects began in November, according to a recently released search warrant affidavit.
A 25-year-old Alexandria man faces multiple charges after being found with a stolen car and allegedly running away from police earlier this month.
The car owner told police that someone must have entered his unlocked apartment and gotten the keys to his 2015 white Honda CRV between midnight on Jan. 1 and 10:30 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 2, according to a search warrant affidavit. The Honda owner then checked a GPS tracker, which showed it parked a mile-and-a-half away in the 5600 block of Derby Court in the Mark Center area.
After a lengthy trial, a hung jury couldn’t reach a verdict against a 24-year-old California man accused of murdering a man in the West End in 2020, and the Commonwealth’s Attorney will retry the case in February.
On Thursday (Dec. 15), the jury remained deadlocked on whether Ahmed Mohammed Shareef should be charged with murder or manslaughter in the Nov. 2020 shooting death of 23-year old Yousef Omar. The jury did, however, find Shareef guilty of racketeering with 20 others for operating a drug trafficking organization between the D.C. Metro area and Los Angeles, California.
A number of suspected MS-13 gang members have been arrested the last several months for allegedly selling crack/cocaine, marijuana and firing gunshots in the Arlandria area.
The suspects allegedly sold the drugs throughout the Arlandria area — and ran the operation from apartments in the 3800 block of Milan Drive and the 3800 block of Executive Avenue, according to a search warrant affidavit.
