History Main / ArrestedForHeroism

* This is combined with a FrameUp in the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode "The Brave and the Bold" where Franchise/TheFlash is arrested after falling victim to Grodd's brainwashing device while chasing a car thief (Solovar, another Gorilla City resident, which had ''seriously'' gotten the hero's attention). Franchise/GreenLantern bails him out, telling the police that they couldn't have held him with a pair of handcuffs if he was ''really'' guilty (which Flash then proves by taking them off by himself). Of course, Green Lantern is skeptical of his teammate's story himself, but that changes ''very'' quickly.

** Harry is starting to get better about trusting people, but now he has the Black Council to worry about. [[RunningGag ''Just'' like Disneyland]].

* In the ''Series/{{Castle}}'' episode "Time Will Tell", villain Ward is beating up Castle and Beckett and is about to kill Castle when Simon Doyle shows up and drives him off. Beckett promptly arrests Doyle for having escaped police custody earlier.

* In ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', because of the [[SuperRegistrationAct regulated nature of Quirks]], it is against the law for anyone to use their powers to help people or fight against villains whether it was for self-defense or not unless they are certified to do so. Iida, Midoriya and Todoroki nearly find themselves in legal trouble when they defeat the wanted villain [[SerialKiller Stain]] because they weren't professional heroes, but the police chief sweeps the incident under the rug and credits Endeavor with Stain's arrest. Similarly, after the aforementioned three, Kirishima and Yaoyorozu embark on an unauthorized mission to rescue Bakugo, Aizawa announces that he'd have had all five and [[AccompliceByInaction those who knew about the rescue attempt and didn't report it]] expelled if not for [[spoiler:All Might's retirement]].

* ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica'': As it happens, the page image of Captain America is an aversion and a [[CoversAlwaysLie misleading cover]]. To be sure, Cap was indeed imprisoned at Ryker's Island... but voluntarily, with the warden's knowledge, in order to test the prison's security by attempting to escape. The real thing did happen to Bucky Barnes when he took on the mantle of Captain America... ''twice''. He was first imprisoned by the U.S., then again by Russia as soon as the American court declared him innocent.
** During his stint as [[CharlieBrownFromOuttaTown The Captain]], though, Steve Rogers did get arrested for heroism a couple of times, since he no longer had government sanction to act as a superhero. The first was in Las Vegas for helping to stop some villains despite being warned off by the local cops, and the second was for saving Washington, D.C. (and, more directly, the President) from the Viper's scheme to turn the population into snake-people, though this time it was the [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Commission on Superhuman Activities]] (the government organization that had forced Rogers to resign as Captain America in the first place) that took him in. Both cases were related, since the Vegas caper was an ad-hoc audition for the villains to join the [[WeirdTradeUnion Serpent Society]] as [[TheMole moles]] for the Viper. And the head of the C.S.A. at the time was himself a mole for the Red Skull, deliberately ignoring a command from the president to pardon Cap (in gratitude for being saved from being snaked up).

*** One of the most blatant examples was ComicBook/SheHulk. One of the few members on the registration side that was likeable, Jennifer Walters spent Civil War mostly on the sidelines helping file lawsuits for both sides. At the end of Civil War, she's working with ComicBook/{{SHIELD}} to train a team to fight [[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk Hulk]]'s standard enemies. For those who weren't following her specifically, it becomes a shock when she suddenly disappears from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s roster. It turns out she got rather pissed when she found out that Tony Stark sent Hulk into space (and lied about it to her to get Jen to sleep with him) and punched him (when he was in armor). Stark took this as a perfect reason to inject her with nanites that removed her powers, and then fired her for her "uncontrollable behavior". (Stark seemed to forget, of course, that Jen is a lawyer; later in the ''ComicBook/WorldWarHulk'' storyline, she sued him to ''force'' him to deactivate the nanites permanently.)

* ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'':

* Mostly {{averted}} on ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'', since the demons sometimes dissolve into flame, but the Charmed Ones did sometimes got in trouble for being in the same alley with a fresh corpse and a ceremonial dagger. Even when they did have a friend on the force, they eventually got into serious trouble with the law for killing demons in ways that ''did'' leave behind bodies. The latter was technically a crime anyway, but for those that know the whole story (like the viewers), it should count.
** In one episode, Chris got arrested for stealing a car in order to chase a bad guy.

* On ''Series/KnightRider'', Michael was arrested several times for his efforts to catch the bad guy. Happened often enough that KITT once complained about how much he hated being impounded.
** Also happens to Mike in the 2008 sequel series, where he openly wonders if being arrested is going to become a regular occurrence.

* This happens to Phase from the ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'' several times. In his first story, he fights a supervillain and ends up getting nearly arrested for vigilantism (he did destroy an entire street). He manages to convince the police that he never intended to fight the supervillain, he just wanted to save his sister, and the cops let him off with a warning that if he does it again without legal authorisation, he's screwed. In his sixth story, he fights a demon that takes down a team from the Mutant Commission Office, and they arrest him and interrogate him continually- despite the fact that he's in urgent need of medical attention- and he only gets out of it because of his family (although he had to physically stop the officers after they were brainwashed by the demon).
** This also plays a role in Charge's BackStory: on two occasions she saves lives, but the French MCO spin it that she was the one who endangered those individuals in the first place.

* The first episode of ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooMysteryIncorporated'' opens with Scooby and the gang getting arrested right after solving a mystery. The police threaten to arrest them several times over the course of the series. This is because Crystal Cove enjoys having a bunch of {{Scooby Doo Hoax}}es to attract tourists (mostly not caring about how the bad guys are usually doing this to steal something), and they don't appreciate a bunch of [[YouMeddlingKids meddling kids]] spoiling the extra revenue.

* Three security members at a Wal-Mart confronted a shoplifter from trying to steal a laptop. When the man brandished a gun and tried to escape, they brought and kept him down. For their actions, Wal-Mart summarily fired them as it was company policy to ''let the man go'' if he was proven to be a threat.
** This is standard policy for most retail businesses for a very good reason: [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome Thieves almost never pull out guns unless they're prepared to shoot somebody.]] It's better to let the shoplifter get away and give the cops whatever details you can afterwards than take a course of action that could get you - or a bystander - injured or killed.

* One sidequest in ''VideoGame/GothicII: Night of the Raven'' involves robbing brainwashed agents of GodOfEvil Beliar. At least one of them is in the area protected by guards and surrounded by {{Badass Bystander}}s who don't know of his crimes, thus attacking him or taking his possessions may have dire consequences. This may be a programmers' oversight, because the quest is given by local authorities (one of several). But since the game is a sandbox, there are several ways to deal with that.

* In ''ComicBook/AstroCity'' story "Pastoral", in the BackStory, Roustabout brought two [=TransGene=] vice presidents and claimed that they had kidnapped him and others, and performed experiments on them [[SoleSurvivor that killed the rest]]. They are acquitted, and he's convicted of breaking and entering. The character learning this is at first willing to accept the verdict, but later sees evidence that it was a MiscarriageOfJustice.
* A rookie cop attempts this to Franchise/{{Batman}} in Frank Miller's ''ComicBook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns'' series, as the rookie comes around a corner just in time to watch Bats deliver a spine-snapping kick to a thug (and not soon enough to have seen the gun the thug was holding to Batman's head). Batman ignores him in favor of shaking down the thug. The rookie's senior partner offers sage advice: "Don't try it, kid. He's being patient with you as it is."
* In ''ComicBook/BeforeWatchmen: Minutemen'', Silk Spectre's agent averted this during the solo phase of her career by making constant "donations" to the "widows and orphans fund". The police probably would have been justified in this case: many of Silk Spectre's acts of heroism were, in fact, staged - the villains were often actors and the places getting "robbed" were in on the whole thing, hoping that the headlines would mean free publicity.
* As it happens, the page image of ComicBook/CaptainAmerica is an aversion and a [[CoversAlwaysLie misleading cover]]. To be sure, Cap was indeed imprisoned at Ryker's Island... but voluntarily, with the warden's knowledge, in order to test the prison's security by attempting to escape. The real thing did happen to Bucky Barnes when he took on the mantle of Captain America... ''twice''. He was first imprisoned by the U.S., then again by Russia as soon as the American court declared him innocent.

* The ''Comicbook/CivilWar2006'' CrisisCrossover and the general status quo afterward consisted of Marvel doing this to their superheroes and then wondering why people thought ComicBook/IronMan was a jerk for setting this plot up in the first place.

* In ''Comicbook/{{Daredevil}}'' this happens to the ''ComicBook/{{White Tiger|MarvelComics}}'', as he tries to break up a robbery.
* In ''ComicBook/TheFurtherAdventuresOfIndianaJones'' #3, Indy stops an explosion intended to bury an army camp under an avalanche of rock by throwing the fused keg of blasting powder down the hill where it explodes safely away from the camp. He then settles down to wait, figuring that the army will come to investigate and he can explain the situation to the, He falls asleep and awakens to find the army arresting him as the saboteur who planted the explosives.

* In the backstory of ''ComicBook/MadameMirage'', superheroism and supervillainy was outlawed. The superheroes turned themselves in -- and were promptly sent to jail. The supervillains, of course, just went underground, meaning that they were all pretty much still at large and the people who could have stopped them were languishing in jail. Yeah, bit of an own goal there.
* [[ComicBook/PaperinikNewAdventures Paperinik]] was once arrested by the TimePolice for helping [[TheSyndicate The Organization]] to steal a weapon from the TimePolice. However he had a damn good reason to do that: they needed it to save the universe from being erased.
* Almost occurs to several secondary characters repeatedly in ''ComicBook/{{Powers}}''.
* The ComicBook/{{Runaways}} were constantly threatened with this during their early years, because the police were under their parents' control and ComicBook/IronMan disliked the idea of underage superheroes.

* Franchise/SpiderMan, being a classic example of a HeroWithBadPublicity, occasionally has to flee police trying to bring him in for some crime he supposedly committed (or simply "for questioning").
* A more complicated version than usual happened in the BackStory of one ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'' story. Orn-Zu, one of the few Kryptonians to believe Jor-El's claims that their planet was doomed, attempted to kidnap a large number of Krypton's children to take them off-world before the disaster. The authorities thought he was just a regular child kidnapper and sent him into the PhantomZone.
* In ''ComicBook/TheUnbelievableGwenpool'', Gwenpool foils a bank robbery by killing the robbers with her guns and a grenade, which damages the building. She expects to be rewarded and showered with praise, but the citizens are understandably terrified of her and she gets arrested. Fortunately for her, the police officer driving the car decides to quit and releases her in exchange for all her money. From the description you can guess she's a DestructiveSavior on her best days.
* Depending on your definition of ''heroism'', this may have been what happened to Rorschach halfway through ''Comicbook/{{Watchmen}}''.

* WesternAnimation/GreenLanternBewareMyPower: In his first scene, John stops a group of thugs from lighting a homeless person on fire. Some cops apprehend him and consider charging him for assaulting the thugs, but decide against it, since arresting a decorated former marine would look bad.