Weirton
City in Hancock County, Brooke County, 18,647 people.
Police
Sheriffs and county police in its counties: Brooke County Sheriff's Office, Hancock 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
- Counties
- Hancock CountyBrooke County
- People
- 18,647
- Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024
How a case moves here
Weirton 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 Weirton Police Department, Weirton'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 | 18 | 17 | 13 | 25 | 15 | 103 | 275 |
| Murder | 1 | 2 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 5.9 | |||
| Rape | 6 | 7 | 4 | 8 | 2 | 32 | 56 |
| Robbery | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 11 | |||||
| Aggravated assault | 11 | 10 | 9 | 15 | 13 | 67 | 201 |
| Property crime | 41 | 70 | 35 | 60 | 60 | 318 | 1,209 |
| Burglary | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 193 | |||||
| Larceny | 41 | 70 | 35 | 60 | 60 | 318 | 924 |
| Motor vehicle theft | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 92 | |||||
| Arson | 2 | 4 | 3 | 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 | 266 | 281 | 225 | 224 | 205 | 1,342 | 2,050 |
| Simple assault and intimidation | 127 | 125 | 110 | 92 | 109 | 623 | 665 |
| Vandalism | 33 | 66 | 33 | 39 | 21 | 219 | 322 |
| Drug abuse violations | 79 | 52 | 62 | 62 | 48 | 331 | 644 |
| Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc. | 7 | 7 | 2 | 11 | 3 | 38 | 84 |
| Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing | 10 | 15 | 10 | 10 | 12 | 65 | 39 |
| Forgery and counterfeiting | 5 | 14 | 3 | 9 | 7 | 48 | 40 |
| Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution) | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 34 |
| Other Group A offenses | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 51 |
Offenses Weirton 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, 2022, 2024, 2025 added together, full years only, beside West Virginia's rate over the same years. – means too few for a rate: the count is under 20.
* 2023: reported for part of the year only, so the count is short and the year is left out of the rate.
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.