Reviewed and updated October 9, 2026 by the SearchSystems.net editorial team. The arrest counts are the ones each agency reported to the FBI, as the FBI held them on October 8, 2026. The jail figures are from the Vera Institute of Justice's Incarceration Trends data. Every office link was opened and checked against the office's own site between September 24, 2026 and October 2, 2026.
Thurston County, Nebraska, has about 6,600 residents (2024 Census Bureau estimate), and arrests there are reported to the FBI by the Thurston County Sheriff's Office, one city agency and one state agency. An arrest leaves the same records whoever makes it: the arresting agency's report, the record of anyone held at the county jail, and, if the County Attorney files charges, a case in the Thurston County District Court. This guide says who keeps each one, what it costs and who may see it, with the arrest counts each agency reported.
This guide covers who makes arrests, how many arrests, booking and the jail, finding an arrest, copies, cities and common questions.
Related guides: Thurston County public records, Nebraska arrest records, Nebraska inmate search and Nebraska criminal records.
Who Makes Arrests in Thurston County
The Thurston County Sheriff's Office is the county agency that reports arrests to the FBI for Thurston County.
One city in Thurston County reports its arrests to the FBI separately:
- Walthill, 702 residents: 1,188 arrests reported for 2025.
A city on that list is reported separately whether the officers are the city's own or the sheriff's under contract; the FBI's list does not say which.
The Emerson Police Department is listed by the FBI across three counties including Thurston County, so its arrests are not broken out for Thurston County here.
The FBI's agency list also places one more agency in Thurston County: the State Patrol in Thurston County (state police).
How Many Arrests Walthill Reports
Each agency reports its arrests to the FBI by month, and the FBI publishes them on the Crime Data Explorer. These are the full-year totals, all offenses, as the FBI held them on October 8, 2026; a year with months missing or not reported is left out.
- Walthill: 1,188 for 2025, 1,161 for 2024, 1,014 for 2023, 1,149 for 2022, 874 for 2021 and 1,114 for 2020.
Walthill's 1,188 arrests in 2025 were up 2.3 percent from 1,161 in 2024.
Through September 2026, Walthill reported 817 arrests, against 891 in the same months of 2025.
Booking: Where People Arrested in Thurston County Are Held
The county jail is where a person arrested in Thurston County and kept in custody ends up, whichever agency made the arrest, though a city department may hold someone in its own cells first and a person cited and released at the scene is never booked. The jail's record of each person held, with the charges, is a public record of the arrest, and once the person is released or sentenced the record continues in the court file.
On an average day in 2019 the jail held about 28 people. Its rated capacity in 2019 was 34 beds, and it ran at 82 percent of it that year. The figures are from the Vera Institute of Justice's Incarceration Trends data.
SearchSystems opened and checked the custody page of the Thurston County Sheriff's Office at thurstonsheriff.org/inmate-search (page title: Thurston County Correctional Facility Inmate Search, Jail Rosters), a site that blocks automated checks (HTTP 403), so open it in a browser.
That page is the place to look for someone who was booked recently; a person cited and released at the scene, or held only a few hours by a city department, will not be on it.
A sentence of more than a year is served in state prison; the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services lists its inmates at dcs-inmatesearch.ne.gov/Corrections/COR_input.jsp.
How to Find Out About an Arrest in Thurston County
Whether someone was arrested in Thurston County, and what came of it, shows up in three places: the custody page of the Thurston County Sheriff's Office described above, for anyone booked into the county jail; the case index of the Thurston County District Court, kept by the Clerk of the District Court, which shows whether charges were filed and the next court date; the County Attorney, which decides whether an arrest becomes a charge (its page is at thurstoncountyne.gov/attorney-county, phone 402-385-3416).
The court records page SearchSystems verified for the county, at nebraskajudicial.gov/courts/thurston-county-court (page title: Thurston County Court | Nebraska Judicial Branch), phone 402-385-3136, belongs to a lower court, not to the Thurston County District Court.
Statewide, Nebraska Trial Court Case Search is the Nebraska Judicial Branch's statewide case search, with a fee per search.
Nebraska is one of the states that lets anyone look up another person's statewide criminal history: the Patrol sells name-based criminal history checks to anyone online, through the Nebraska State Patrol. That record shows what agencies reported to the state, which is wider than one county's court index but can lag it.
Getting a Copy of an Arrest Record in Thurston County
The report of an arrest is released by the agency that made it; the jail and the court hold their own records of the same event, but not the report. Under the Nebraska Public Records Statutes the agency must answer within 4 business days, and it may charge copying, and staff time after the first four hours.
- An arrest by the Thurston County Sheriff's Office: ask its records unit.
- An arrest in Walthill: the records unit of the agency that reports for that city.
- An arrest by the State Patrol in Thurston County: the records office of the agency involved.
- A defendant who has been charged gets the report through the case: the County Attorney, 402-385-3416, handles discovery for pending cases.
- The court file of a case that was filed: in the Thurston County District Court it is kept by the Clerk of the District Court. The court records page SearchSystems verified for the county, at nebraskajudicial.gov, phone 402-385-3136, is a lower court's.
- Any county record that is not posted: the county records request page SearchSystems verified is at thurstoncountyne.gov (page title: Freedom of Information Request | Thurston County).
- Your own statewide record: the same request described above, for your own name.
Cities in Thurston County: Who Reports the Arrests
The FBI lists a separate arrest reporting agency for one of the five cities in Thurston County: Walthill. Pender, Winnebago, Rosalie and Thurston have no separate reporting agency in the FBI's list.
Wherever in the county the arrest happens, a person kept in custody goes to the county jail and the case goes to the Thurston County District Court.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many arrests are made in Thurston County each year?
Walthill reported 1,188 arrests to the FBI for 2025, its latest full year.
Where are people arrested in Thurston County booked?
Those kept in custody go to the county jail, run by the Thurston County Sheriff's Office; a person cited and released at the scene is not booked.
Are arrest records public in Thurston County?
The court files of criminal cases are public, and so is the statewide criminal history kept by the Nebraska State Patrol: the Patrol sells name-based criminal history checks to anyone online. The arrest report itself is released by the agency that made the arrest, under the Nebraska Public Records Statutes.
How do I get a copy of an arrest report in Thurston County?
From the agency that made the arrest: the Thurston County Sheriff's Office for its own arrests, or the agency that reports for the city where it happened. Under the Nebraska Public Records Statutes the answer is due within 4 business days; the county records request page SearchSystems verified is at thurstoncountyne.gov.
Is this the official Thurston County website?
No. SearchSystems.net is an independent public records guide, online since 1997. It links to the official county, court and state offices described above and does not hold records, charge for them or take requests.