Garden Concealed Drug Cultivation, Police Say

Police have arrested a Long Beach man who allegedly used a vegetable garden and tree trimmings to camouflage $1-million worth of marijuana and opium poppies growing in his back yard.

James Melvin Sharp Jr., 31, was booked at Signal Hill jail on suspicion of cultivating marijuana and opium poppies for sale, Signal Hill Police Officer Michael Mills said Sunday.

Signal Hill police were tipped off that Sharp had a large marijuana crop growing in the double lot behind his rented home in the 1600 block of Rogers Street.

Signal Hill officers conducted the investigation, even though Sharp lives in neighboring Long Beach, because they received the initial lead in the case, Mills explained.

When detectives, using a search warrant, raided Sharp’s back yard on Thursday, they were amazed by the crop’s size--740 plants, some as tall as 15 feet, said Signal Hill Police Detective Mary Risinger.

“That is an extremely huge amount,” Risinger said. “It was definitely too much for personal use.”

Most of the marijuana was hidden beneath dead branches and uprooted shrubs, Risinger said. But police also found pot and opium poppies growing alongside corn, string beans and bell peppers in Sharp’s vegetable garden, she noted.

Sharp was not present at the time of the raid, so officers asked neighbors to call if he returned home, Risinger said. When a neighbor alerted police on Saturday that Sharp was back, they returned to arrest him, she said.

Irene Young, a neighbor, said she was surprised by the size of the crop.

“I didn’t realize there was that much back there,” she said.

But Young said she and several other neighbors had been suspicious of Sharp since he moved into the neighborhood less than a year ago.

“There were always people coming and going,” Young said. “Long-haired guys and strange looking people.”

Several neighbors called police in recent weeks to complain about Sharp after they saw him chasing a woman through the neighborhood with a baseball bat, she added.