Turn In Your Badge / Live-Action TV

• Happens to Jack Bauer on 24 at least once a season, forcing him to "go rogue" for 2-3 episodes before CTU realizes he was right all along.
• Parodied. Kenneth does this in the workplace dramedy 30 Rock. Pete is justly alarmed that a page was carrying a gun...
• Adam-12:
  • In the episode "X-Force," Malloy is suspended for four days after being accused of using excessive force on a suspect, a smart-mouthed child molester.
  • Several other episodes see rouge or otherwise bad or ill-suited police officers either get let go, voluntarily agree to turn in their badge or get washed out. A Season 3 episode saw an officer, a close friend of Malloy's, be involved in an extortion ring. A "Badge Heavy" cop turns in his things in Season 5 after evidence mounts of him using excessive force on suspects. A Season 6 episode, "The Rookie," saw a "supercop" get fired after it was clear he was using poor judgement in identifying suspects. And finally, a young rookie cop realizes — almost too late — that a stuttering impediment makes him ill-suited for the force in Season 7's "Pressure Point."
• In the Angel episode "Reprise", Kate faces the review board at her Internal Affairs investigation, who lay out all of her unusual actions over the last several months including her now supposedly morbid fascination with unusual cases. Kate cannot explain the true circumstances, and the board concludes that she has become unstable due to her father's murder. They fire her and demand her badge and gun.
• Det. Mike Cellucci is asked for his badge in Blood Ties (2007) S2 finale. Considering he's been threatened with it for two seasons and finally left a hostage crisis to battle Astaroth with Vicki and Henry, it's completely unsurprising.
• Bones:
  • On episode had Booth turn in his badge. The rest of the team realized that they could get him his job back if they solved the case they were working on, so his suspension only lasted one episode.
  • Hodgins also hands in his resignation after Booth finds out that the victim's wife is a good friend of his, and Hodgins failed to mention that. When the case is solved and the bad guy put away, Cam tears up the letter of resignation. This is despite the fact that Hodgins more or less owns the entire institute but does his work because he likes it.
• Discussed and defied in The Bridge (2011) — when it's suggested that Martin be taken off the case now that It's Personal, he matter-of-factly announces that he'd just keep investigating as a civilian. They keep him on.
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine
  • Subverted in "Charges and Specs", the season 1 finale.
    Jake: [Dramatically] Here's my gun and my badge!
    Holt: I don't need those. You're not suspended yet, you're on administrative leave.
    Jake: You never let me do anything cool!
  • Subverted again in "Sabotage". After Jake Peralta is framed for drug use, Holt actually does need his badge and gun - except rather than slam them down on his desk, Jake has to go fill out forms and hand them to a property clerk.
    Holt: In the meantime, Peralta, you're suspended. I'm gonna need you to hand in your badge and gun.
    Jake: All right, fine, you can have my badge and gun, but we're doing it in your office so I can slam them down on your desk and yell out, "The system stinks!"
    Holt: Actually, the procedure is to bring your gun and badge down to the equipment room on the second floor, fill out form 452-underscore J, hand said form in to the inventory clerk, and then receive a claim check through interoffice mail.
    Jake: The system stinks!
    • When Jake is later cleared, he demands he be dramatically given back his gun and badge, while Holt again points out that he needs to fill out the proper paperwork. Except now the entire precinct is on Jake's side, so Holt just rolls his eyes and gives up his own gun and badge.
• In the Castle episode "Always", Gates demands this of Esposito and Beckett, and Beckett decides to resign entirely.
• Cold Case:
  • Subverted in an episode of where Det. Valens goes overboard on a suspect after suffering a personal tragedy and is ordered to turn in his gun (but not his badge) to his boss. Not only was he not taken off the force (it was only a suggestion for a leave of absence that Valens mistook for a suspension), but he also doesn't go off on his own, during his leave.
  • Played straight in "Flashover". After a man convicted of the deaths of his sons is murdered in prison and new evidence emerges proving his innocence, a guilt-ridden Det. Vera goes on an alcoholic bender where he crashes his car and causes his colleagues to worry that he will be Driven to Suicide. He doesn't and turns in his gun and badge at the end of the episode.
• On Community a blistering Turn In Your Badge speech is given by Abed, of all people, to Shirley and Annie who are campus security for the day and are trying to out-loose cannon each other. After they repeatedly fail, Dean Pelton chews them out, and Abed starts feeding him lines to make him emulate this trope. When he gets frustrated by Abed's interruptions, Abed takes over and does a full parody of this trope.
• After the events of the Criminal Minds episode "Doubt", Erin Strauss sees enough to ask this of Aaron "Hotch" Hotchner. Hotch is officially suspended for two weeks, though Strauss tells him, "if it were up to me, you wouldn't get these (his badge and his gun) back".
• Subverted on CSI, when Warrick Brown forces Detective Jim Brass to hand over his badge, but only so he can analyze it and find the evidence to clear Brass of the crime he was accused of, before Brass gets it back at the end of the episode.
• CSI: NY:
  • Don Flack has his taken away temporarily when a suspect dies while he's interrogating him.
  • Stella Bonasera angrily turns hers into Mac during her stolen Greek antiquities arc because he wants her to let the proper authorities handle it and she refuses to back down. He gives it back to her once the case is solved.
  • Three rookies working under Danny during his stint as a sergeant in Season 8 are fired after they are found to have lied about their involvement in an "Officer Involved" shooting that left a civilian who'd been harassing the female of the trio dead.
• Daredevil (2015). Subverted when FBI agent Nadeem tells his superior Tammy Hattley and an agent of Internal Affairs that he has allowed himself to be manipulated by Fisk. Hattley places Nadeem under suspension and orders him to hand over his badge and gun. She uses the latter to shoot the OPR agent and frame Nadeem for the murder. She then gives Nadeem his badge back, as every other agent on Fisk's protection detail has already been compromised in a similar fashion.
• Defiance: Played with. Nolan is the Lawkeeper, appointed by the current mayor Amanda Rosewater. Datak Tar, who is running against her, broadcasts a racist rant Nolan gave twenty years ago when he was still with the Earth Republic, in order to discredit Amanda. Nolan, realizing that this means Datak is in much deeper with the E-Rep than expected and that there will be terrible consequences if he is elected, immediately turns in his badge and refuses to hear another word of it.
  Amanda: I'm not letting you quit, Nolan.
  Nolan: You're right, you're not; you're firing me. Tell them that I'm an impetuous hothead—great against the Volge, but not fit to serve as Lawkeeper.
• In Dollhouse, Agent Paul Ballard has to hand in his badge and gun because the Dollhouse sets him up since he's too close to the truth.
• In the pilot of Due South, Fraser turns in his own badge, after he is denied a transfer to the consulate in Chicago so that he could coordinate with the Chicago Police Department to ensure that they are investigating the suspect in his father's murder. Having seen that he intends to go to Chicago whether they let him go officially or not, they decide to give him the transfer (thus, he keeps the badge after all.)
• The Dukes of Hazzard: Rosco and Enos have both been asked to turn in their badges for various reasons, often for simply irritating their boss, Boss Hogg. At least once, as Rosco handed the badge to Boss, he stuck Boss' hand, causing him to yelp in pain.
• Discussed in an episode of Family Matters. A gang called the Dragons trashes Rachel's Place; Carl is in the middle of running an investigation when a beaten-up Eddie arrives and says the Dragons jumped him, too Carl is enraged and wants to retaliate with physical violence, but Steve points out that Carl would lose his badge when the Dragons inevitably claim police brutality against him. Then Steve volunteers to go into the Dragons' lair wearing a wire.
• Father Brown: In "The Blue Cross", after initially losing the Cross, Father Brown is told by his unamused bishop that he is going to lose his parish.
• In the Future Cop episode "The Mad Mad Bomber," Haven inaccurately predicts the location of a bombing, resulting in the unnecessary evacuation of a crowded sports arena. Afterward, Captain Skaggs declares him faulty, takes his badge and gun, and sends him back to the lab to be dismantled.
• Gang Related:
  • Cassius is suspended over him (justifiably) shooting a rich white kid high out of his mind on drugs who shot Ryan (who'd been saved by his vest) and then was going to shoot him. Even it's clear he did nothing wrong, there is every sign he'll get fired from the DEA as the kid's dad is filing a lawsuit over it. However, this ends once Ryan intimidates the man and makes him drop it.
  • Chapel later gets suspended when he beats up El Mozo, who he thinks had his daughter murdered.
• Astoundingly, it takes The Good Guys ten episodes before this happens to Dan and Jack. Dan isn't bothered by it, since he considers suspension like a vacation. Naturally, he manages to bungle his way into getting them reinstated through an incredibly illegal chain of events.
• The Greatest American Hero: FBI special agent Bill Maxwell fails his annual polygraph test because he doesn't want to disclose about Ralph and the suit. His supervisor tells him to turn in his gun and badge, but Bill tells him that his gun was his personal weapon. Later, Bill and Ralph solve one of the FBI toughest cases and Bill uses that to be reinstated, but without the requirement.
• Harrow: At the end of "Parce Sepulto" ("Forgive the Dead"), Maxine suspends Harrow and demands his ID and building pass after she catches him forging her signature on an exhumation order. Harrow's suspension remains in place for the remainder of the season.
• Hightown:
  • Jackie is suspended after she gets into a car accident while drunk. If she can't get the charges reduced, a felony conviction will cost her the job permanently. She later gets them reduced, with her suspension lifted.
  • Ray's captain suspends him after it turns out that he's involved with his informant, tainting the investigation into Frankie Cuevas Sr. He's unable to lift this, and is fired from the police force.
  • Jackie is forced to hand over her gun and badge after she fails a drug test in Season 3, being kicked out of the unit for it.
• Homicide: Life on the Street: After Pembleton covers up a scandal involving an influential Congressman at Deputy Commissioner Harris's orders, the cover-up becomes a major news story and Harris hangs Pembleton out to dry. Enraged by both this and Harris hypocritically suspending him to save face, Pembleton throws his badge on Giardello's desk and quits the force. No one takes him seriously, and Pembleton eventually returns to his position.
  • Both he and Kellerman do this at the end of Season 6, once the circumstances surrounding the shooting death of Luther Mahoney become known. Kellerman does it in order to save the jobs of the other two detectives who had been there; all three wrote false reports that put them in danger of being fired. Pembleton does it out of disgust over what his coworkers had done and guilt over Bayliss having taken a bullet to protect him.
• Parodied with Laser Tag in an episode of How I Met Your Mother. After playing with roughly with children during a game of laser tag, Barney is ordered into the office and the scene plays out like a loose cannon cop being fired, right down to him being ordered to hand in his ID badge and (laser) gun. He gets a second chance, but thirty seconds later is banned again after pinning a kid down and shooting him.
  McCraken: Disorderly gameplay, three counts of shoving, and now this? Stinson, you're a liability!
  Barney: I know I don't play by your precious rules, McCraken, but dammit, I get results!
  McCraken: Look, you're a good laser tag player, maybe the best I've ever seen, but one of these days you're gonna get someone hurt, maybe even yourself!
  Barney: You just forget what it's like out there. You've had your fat ass stuck behind that desk for too long!
  McCraken: That's it, you're out of here, Stinson! Hand in your gun and your ID badge.
  Barney: With pleasure!
• The Indian Detective:
  • Doug is suspended from the Toronto Police Service for a month. His partner Robyn also gets a week-long one.
  • Meanwhile, it's implied this is at least one thing Deputy Commissioner Ruby Singh could do to Inspector Devo if he attempts to help Priya build a case against Gopal Chandekar.
• In the Dark: Gene is ordered to do this and fired when he lets Murphy escape from underneath his nose.
• Subverted in an episode of Joan of Arcadia: Will was being a loose cannon due to stress from recent events, and nearly shot a little girl; he's slowly talked into accepting the break from work. In a later episode, back on the force and fresh from a successful bust, he's interviewed by reporters who try to shove him into the McCloud role, which he gets an ego trip from until his coworkers call him on it.
• In the third season of The Joe Schmo Show, The Full Bounty, those evicted are told "Turn in your badge and your gun."
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson, though very rarely for either of them.
  • In one episode a Genre Savvy Stabler is told that the captain wants to see him, he gives his gun and badge to Fin, knowing he'll have to turn them in anyway before he leaves.
  • And after the Season 7 Finale, Law & Order: Criminal Intent's Bobby Goren. The scene is inverted in the season 8 premiere.
• DCI Gene Hunt gets suspended in both Life On Mars accused of murdering a boxing promoter and Ashes to Ashes (2008) Gene and Ray attack a suspect and are reported by Alex, and Gene gets put on paid leave, which means, of course, that he was just being Gene!
  • Gene Hunt himself employs this trope in the seventh episode, when there is a death in police custody and he suspends Sam for being overzealous in his pursuit of the truth. The Stinger?
    Gene: You did a good investigation, Sam. I'm glad I let you.
  • He also suspends Alex in series 2, in a heartbreaking moment illustrating the deterioration of trust between them.
• Luke Cage (2016):
  • Captain Audrey, Misty Knight's supervisor in the first part of season 1, gets the boot from the 29th precinct after Detective Scarfe's death and it coming to light that he was corrupt under her watch.
  • Misty is forced to temporarily give up her gun and shield for a day of counseling with a department shrink on Inspector Ridley's orders after she snaps and assaults Claire in an interrogation room.
• The Mentalist:
  • Used with Wayne Rigsby, but quickly taken back once Patrick Jane realized that he had been hypnotized and wasn't responsible for his actions.
  • Used again in the second season with Lisbon after she was accused of murder and failed a polygraph test. And this time, she really had to turn it in.
  • The whole team went unregulated for an episode after breaking protocol, but they were allowed to carry on when Minelli looked the other way.
• In the Miami Vice finale "Freefall," federal agent Andrew Baker threatens to get Crockett and Tubbs kicked off the force for killing the deposed dictator of a Banana Republic who was in league with corrupt government officials. The two respond by throwing their badges on the ground, completely burned out from the job and disgusted by the corruption they've seen, despite Castillo's pleas for them to reconsider.
• A variation in Midsomer Murders where Inspector Barnaby isn't kicked off the force but removed from a case that involves his wife. The inspector who is handling the case catches on when witnesses complain about being interviewed again, but fortunately is a colossal jerkass who is soundly beaten at the end.
• "Mr Monk Gets Fired": Monk accidentally deletes important police information, so the commissioner revokes his license. It's implied that Monk deleting important forensic information was really only an excuse for the commissioner to do this, and that he was actually taking Monk off the case in revenge for sending his friend (a corrupt cop) to jail.
  • In the Tie-In Novel Mr. Monk on the Couch, Stottlemeyer threatens to have former vice cop turned homicide Lieutenant Amy Devlin's badge after she comes very close to getting killed by an Ax-Crazy killer in a trap to catch said killer.
• In Murdoch Mysteries, Chief Constable Giles dismisses both Murdoch and Brackenreid for their efforts to clear Julia of her estranged husband's murder. They set up shop in Brackenreid's dining room and are joined by Crabtree to continue their investigation.
• NCIS:
  • Subverted. In "Jeopardy" Ziva appears to have caused the death of a prisoner in her custody and is stuck on desk work. She says there's only one thing to do, having "seen it on your American movies" and hands Gibbs her badge. Gibbs in unimpressed, gives her back the badge and tells Ziva that if she does that again, she'd better mean it. In "Twisted Sister" McGee hands in his badge to the Director because he refused to turn in his sister when she appeared to have committed a murder — Gibbs promptly Dope Slaps McGee for allowing the Director to manipulate him into resigning.
  • Played straight in the season 8 episode "Defiance"; after McGee and DiNozzo blunder a protection detail, director Vance demands that "if the situation is not rectified in 48 hours", he will have both their badges on his desk.
  • And in the season 10 finale "Damned If You Do", DiNozzo,McGee and Ziva all take off their badges and hand them over to clear Gibbs' name.
• A humourous variation occurs in NCIS: Los Angeles. When they're about to go rogue to rescue Hettie, the team pre-emptively does this. One by one, they slap down their badges . . . until it reaches Deeks, the consultant from the LAPD who doesn't have a NCIS badge. He shrugs philosophically, comments "I would if I could," and follows them out.
• New Tricks:
  • Subverted; although he's not technically a police officer anymore, when Gerry is briefly sidelined from an investigation owing to his possible old-time connection to a gangster who has become the focus of the investigation, he angrily offers his resignation, only for his boss (Sandra) to flatly refuse it; she doesn't want his 'badge', but at the same time she can't reasonably have him in the investigation.
  • Another time, after another chewing out from Sandra, Gerry offers her his badge yet again — except, of course, being a retired policeman, he no longer has a badge, so he has to make do with his Blockbuster video club card.
• Odd Squad:
  • Inverted in "Agent Obfusco" when Olive and Otto willingly hand in their badges to Oprah because they're expired, although they're not fired. (At least not yet — if they fail the Odd Squad Test though...)
  • In "Trading Places", an Olive going through an Overnight Age-Up from a 12-year-old child to a 21-year-old woman is forced to surrender her badge to Oprah since only kids can be employed at Odd Squad. Once the Flip-Flop-inator is returned to Oscar, she is turned back into a child and re-hired onto the force.
  • Subverted in "Assistant's Creed" when Oprah tells her two assistants, Olympia and Ozric, to take off their headbands as a supposed punishment for sneaking out of the office, only to give them new badges and promote them to the Investigation department as new agents in exchange.
  • In "Oscar Strikes Back", Obbs is fired for his actions in forcefully mind-controlling every Scientist to take over Odd Squad, and is forced to give up his coat and badge to fellow Security agents Owen and Ohio. He is then offered a brochure for Todd's "Life of Grime" villain rehabilitation program as an alternative to becoming a villain (since a lot of Odd Squad's major threats are Enfant Terribles).
  • Played with in "End of the Road", the mid-season finale of Season 3. Oprah (as the Big O) confiscates the Mobile Unit's van and puts them off the case of finding and stopping The Shadow and her Evil Plan, and to add more salt to the wound, she also sends them back to the Odd Squad Academy and has them attend a class there, Orchid's School for Listeners. However, it's never made explicitly clear whether she officially demotes them or not, as the Mobile Unit agents aren't seen wearing the typical school uniform that agents-in-training attending the Academy wear (instead keeping their original mainstay Mobile Unit department uniforms), but Opal also tells her teammates that they need to get "back on the Squad", which would indicate that they were demoted.
• Downplayed for Detective Carter between seasons two and three of Person of Interest. When an assassination attempt by the Dirty Cop organization HR in the season two finale fails (Carter was quicker on the trigger than her assailant), the HR cop in charge improvises, pocketing the assassin's gun to make it look to Internal Affairs like she shot an unarmed man. By the season 3 premiere, Carter's been busted down to patrol officer.
• The Professionals. In "Involvement", Ray Doyle says he's resigning from CI5 only for George Cowley to tell him he can't...because he was suspended from duty thirty seconds ago. He then orders Doyle to hand over his warrant card, RT handset and firearm.
• Subverted in the Stargate SG-1 episode "Shades of Grey", in which Jack O'Neill (a Military Maverick) is forced to retire after stealing a piece of advanced technology from the Tollan, and then proceeds to collaborate with Colonel Maybourne and his rogue NID team involved in similar activities. In the end, it is revealed that all of this was a ploy by O'Neill and General Hammond to expose the NID's mole in the SGC, who turned out to be Colonel Makepeace.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: Subverted in an episode, where Worf kills Duras, a member of the Klingon High Council in a duel. Granted, Duras has just killed the mother of Worf's child (aboard the Enterprise, no less), but this, at the very least, should have cost him his commission. The only thing that saves him is the fact that the Klingon High Council considers the matter closed (that and the fact that they don't even want to acknowledge Worf's existence after his discommendation). Picard also points out that a letter of admonishment will be appended to his service record, so Worf's promotion prospects were pretty dire until the Dominion War came around.
• Averted in the finale of Star Trek: Picard; when Tuvok confronts Seven of Nine about her actions in stealing the Titan-A, Seven announces her intention to resign from Starfleet. Tuvok then shows her Captain Shaw's logs, in which he commended Seven for her courage and loyalty, despite her maverick tendencies. Tuvok then informs Seven, "Resignation denied, Captain."
• On S.W.A.T. (1975), the premiere episode plays with this as Robert Urich's cop character, in the hospital after surviving an attack that killed his partner, picks up his badge as if he wants to resign. However, he then simply requests if his badge could be renumbered to his deceased partner's; the SWAT leader agrees to make the arrangements.
• Occurs during the first series finale of Torchwood to Owen after he opened the Rift and caused what appeared to be irreparable damage. It was later subverted in the second series, once again with Owen. The subversion was that he was asked to turn in his badge, not because of the danger to others, but to himself - he had died and was brought back to life, and could no longer heal.
• On Twin Peaks, this happens to Agent Cooper.
• Walker, Texas Ranger: Season 6's "In God's Hands" saw Trivette be placed on administrative leave while the shooting of a 6-year-old child during a chase is investigated; a tough high-ranking officer suggests that Trivette carelessly fired his gun and shot the child (that officer being jealous of the fact that he was passed over in favor of Trivette when they were both up for being named Ranger), but in the end, it becomes clear that the child was caught in the crossfire and that the bullet came from one of the criminal's handguns and Walker found Trivette's bullet lodged in a tree.
• On White Collar, fingerprints implying Peter planted evidence lead to an investigation and his boss asking for his badge and gun.
• Fox Mulder (The X-Files), at least three times.

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