Re: Why to the Teenagers like hangout at the Library
Posted by:
Weird Laws of Virginia
()
Date: June 17, 2016 08:00PM
They're hiding from the cops.
Due to an obscure quirk in Virginia law, in public libraries, police powers are exclusively reserved to appointed "special conservators of the peace" or library policemen.
The law goes back to when Thomas Jefferson was governor of Virginia. If you know your history, you know Jefferson had a special respect for institutions of higher learning, so he signed an act giving special conservators of the peace exclusive authority to enforce the law at public universities, colleges, schools and libraries.
This authorization was included in the 1810 act that established the Virginia Literary Fund, which is how public schools were paid for until 1870.
Over the years, colleges and schools were stripped out of the jurisdiction of the library police, which is why George Mason and NVCC have separate police forces and FCPD is allowed to place SROs in high schools.
What this means that state and local law enforcement agencies have no police powers (including the power of arrest) in public libraries except in cases where there's "immediate danger to life or property".
Even in those extreme cases, their powers are limited to those actions necessary to prevent loss of life or damage to property. Once the immediate threat is over, they have to defer to the library policemen.
There are less than a dozen special conservators of the peace in Fairfax County for the entirety of FCPL, so the kids know their chances of getting busted by the library police are very, very low, and the regular cops can't touch them as long as they behave.