Wheeling
City in Ohio County, Marshall County, 26,350 people.
Police
Sheriffs and county police in its counties: Marshall County Sheriff's Office, Ohio 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
- Ohio CountyMarshall County
- People
- 26,350
- Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024
How a case moves here
Wheeling 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 Wheeling Police Department, Wheeling'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 | 271 | 327 | 258 | 255 | 212 | 1,016 | 277 |
| Murder | 2 | 5 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 5.9 | ||
| Rape | 19 | 27 | 21 | 14 | 19 | 77 | 56 |
| Robbery | 14 | 14 | 9 | 14 | 5 | 43 | 12 |
| Aggravated assault | 236 | 281 | 228 | 227 | 187 | 890 | 203 |
| Property crime | 504 | 665 | 559 | 535 | 426 | 2,065 | 1,213 |
| Burglary | 110 | 188 | 139 | 143 | 106 | 527 | 193 |
| Larceny | 364 | 435 | 385 | 362 | 309 | 1,424 | 927 |
| Motor vehicle theft | 30 | 42 | 35 | 30 | 11 | 114 | 93 |
| Arson | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 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 | 950 | 1,050 | 871 | 899 | 753 | 3,473 | 2,075 |
| Simple assault and intimidation | 299 | 300 | 292 | 309 | 213 | 1,085 | 680 |
| Vandalism | 165 | 165 | 140 | 148 | 129 | 574 | 327 |
| Fraud | 69 | 82 | 73 | 84 | 78 | 296 | 162 |
| Drug abuse violations | 306 | 373 | 263 | 240 | 222 | 1,078 | 646 |
| Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc. | 24 | 21 | 12 | 20 | 20 | 74 | 84 |
| Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing | 5 | 14 | 11 | 5 | 8 | 33 | 39 |
| Forgery and counterfeiting | 25 | 36 | 21 | 13 | 12 | 82 | 41 |
| Embezzlement | 4 | 7 | 2 | 5 | 10 | 22 | 8.6 |
| Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution) | 21 | 17 | 14 | 14 | 23 | 68 | 33 |
| Prostitution and commercialized vice | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 3.1 | |
| Other Group A offenses | 29 | 35 | 39 | 58 | 34 | 150 | 51 |
| Manslaughter by negligence (not in the total) | 2 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 1 |
Offenses Wheeling 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.