Chap. 361.—An ACT to authorize and empower boards of supervisors or other
governing bodies of certain counties to establish, furnish and provide for police
departments and police forces in such counties; to provide for the appointment,
functions, powers, duties and compensation of police officers and chiefs of
police in such counties; and to repeal certain acts and parts of acts inconsistent
with the provisions of this act. [H B 414]

Approved March 30, 1940

1. Beit enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, as follows:

Section 1. The board of supervisors or other governing body of
any county in this Commonwealth adjoining any county having a
population greater than five hundred per square mile, according to
the last preceding United States Census, shall have the power to
establish a police force to be known as the county police department
of such county, provided, however, that the establishment of such
department shall first be ordered by the adoption of a resolution to
that effect by the recorded vote of the board of supervisors or other
governing board of any such county.

Section 2. The board of supervisors or other governing body of
any such county establishing such a police department shall have
power to make provision for financing said department in the county
levy, and shall have further power to do all things necessary to es-
tablish, organize and administer said department and to carry out
the provisions of this Act.

Section 3. In any. county establishing such police department
there shall be appointed a chief of police, which appointment shall be
made by the judge of the circuit court, in term or vacation, said chief
to be appointed upon the request and nomination of the board of
supervisors or other governing body of such county, subject, however,
to the approval of the judge of the circuit court, which appointment
shall be for the term of one year, unless sooner terminated, and said
chief shall have supervision of said police department. |

Section 4. Appointment of police officers in such police depart-
ment shall be made by the judge of the circuit court, either in term
or in vacation, upon the request and recommendation of the chief of
said department, which appointments shall be for the term of one
year, unless sooner terminated.

Section 5. All police officers appointed under this Act, including
the chief of said department, shall be conservators of the peace in
said county, and shall be charged with the enforcement of all of the
criminal laws throughout: the confines of said county. All of the
members of said police force, except as otherwise provided herein,
shall be subject to the provisions of Section forty-eight hundred,
forty-eight hundred and one and forty-eight hundred and two, of
the Code of Virginia, and possessed of all the duties and obligations
required of police officers by the aforesaid sections of the Code.

Section 6. Before any person shall be appointed as police officer
hereunder, he shall make written application for such appointment
to the chief of police, which application shall state the applicant’s full
name, age, place of residence, occupation and by whom regularly
employed. The board of supervisors may, if deemed proper, except
where the police officer is otherwise regularly employed and his police
duties are merely incidental to such private employment, allow such
compensation to said police officer, together with any expenses in-
curred in executing his duties as shall be deemed right and proper by
the said board of supervisors or other governing body, to be paid out
of the county levy. No police officer appointed under this section,
who is otherwise regularly employed and whose duties as police officer
are merely incidental to such private employment, shall be deemed
to be an employee of the State or county within the meaning of the
Virginia Workmen’s Compensation Act.

2. Beit further enacted by the General Assembly, That Chapter
three hundred and twenty-one of the Acts of the General Assembly of
nineteen hundred and twenty-eight, approved March twenty-first,
nineteen hundred and twenty-eight, and amendments thereto, with
the exception of sub-section (b) of Section five of the said act, as
amended, which subsection is hereby expressly continued in force, be,
and the same are hereby, repealed.

3. An emergency existing, this act shall be in force from its
passage.