Buckhannon
City in Upshur County, 5,116 people.
Police
Sheriff in its county: Upshur County Sheriff's Office.
A department is the place's own when its name is the place's and its FBI population fits the place's people (decision city-or-town-is-its-police-department). Agencies: FBI NIBRS master file 2025 batch headers; names from the FBI agency list, pulled 2026-09-29.
Where it sits
- County
- Upshur County
- People
- 5,116
- Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024
How a case moves here
Buckhannon follows West Virginia law on arrests, release, and courts; the full set covers prosecutors, defense, and jails too.
- Who decides release first
A county magistrate sets bail first, with an on-call magistrate for arrests after hours. Magistrates need not be lawyers. Only the circuit court can release a person charged with an offense punishable by life in prison.
W. Va. Code 62-1C-1W. Va. Code 62-1-5- Time to see a judge
An officer must take an arrested person "without unnecessary delay" before a magistrate of the county where the arrest happened. The law sets no number of hours.
W. Va. Code 62-1-5(a)(1)- Money bail
Magistrates and judges may set money bail.
W. Va. Code 62-1C-1
Read from the statutes and court rules cited, 2026-09-30. Some of this is medium confidence and still being checked. The name of the Supreme Court-approved risk instrument was not found. Whether jailers release on a bail schedule without a magistrate was not found.
Crime
Offenses reported by Buckhannon Police Department, Buckhannon's own department. The county sheriff and state police may answer calls here too; their offenses are on their own pages.
The crime index
| Offense | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Per 100k | West Virginia |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violent crime | 1 | 3 | 4 | 16 | 7 | 121 | 277 |
| Murder | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 5.9 | |||||
| Rape | 1 | 2 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 56 | ||
| Robbery | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 12 | |||||
| Aggravated assault | 1 | 2 | 4 | 14 | 6 | 105 | 203 |
| Property crime | 63 | 86 | 77 | 62 | 42 | 1,283 | 1,213 |
| Burglary | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 193 | |||||
| Larceny | 63 | 86 | 77 | 62 | 42 | 1,283 | 927 |
| Motor vehicle theft | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 93 | |||||
| Arson | 2 | 5 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 12 |
Outside the crime index
| Offense | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Per 100k | West Virginia |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All offenses outside the crime index | 142 | 81 | 84 | 74 | 100 | 1,870 | 2,075 |
| Simple assault and intimidation | 48 | 22 | 40 | 28 | 45 | 712 | 680 |
| Vandalism | 41 | 28 | 19 | 19 | 17 | 482 | 327 |
| Fraud | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 162 | ||||
| Drug abuse violations | 45 | 23 | 15 | 19 | 28 | 505 | 646 |
| Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc. | 2 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 6 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 84 |
| Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing | 1 | 1 | 2 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 39 | ||
| Forgery and counterfeiting | 2 | 5 | 6 | 3 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 41 |
| Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution) | 1 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 33 | |||
| Other Group A offenses | 2 | 3 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 51 |
Offenses Buckhannon Police Department reported to the FBI in incident detail (NIBRS), each year, the second table by the arrest class each offense falls in. Per 100k: offenses per 100,000 people the department polices, 2021 to 2025 added together, beside West Virginia's rate over the same years. – means too few for a rate: the count is under 20.
Source: FBI NIBRS national master files, each agency's offenses and the FBI's population for it. West Virginia: the crime index: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, CrimeDB's chosen value per year (the state page's figures); outside it: FBI NIBRS, agencies that sent incident detail.