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Nick: I'll tell you guys what I'm gonna do! I'll tell you what! I'm gonna get even with every rotten cop in this city!
Paolo: Yeah, me too!
Guido: How you gonna do it, Nick? How you gonna do it?
Nick: I'm gonna…turn in my badge!
Guido: Yeah! I'm gonna burn my uniform!…
— The Firesign Theatre, How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All?
That cop has always been a loose cannon, but this time he's stepped over the line. He is ordered by his boss to turn in his badge and gun, and then go home on an extended "vacation." This is sometimes accompanied by an Insignia Rip Off Ritual.
The cop ignores this directive and finishes tracking the perp down. Sometimes, it's because he's a Cowboy Cop. Other times, Its Personal. When the bad guy is eventually caught, the cop's boss never reprimands the rogue cop and sometimes even admits he was wrong. There won't even be a Mc Cloud Speech about all the regulations the cop broke on this excursion, not the least of which being ignoring an order -- probably because he technically wasn't acting as a cop, but merely breaking the law as a regular citizen...
Variation: the cop was never actually off the force but was merely pretending to be, with his superiors' knowledge, to fool a bad guy, sometimes another cop (see: Fake Defector, which is a case of Not Himself).
Examples:
- Parodied in The Italian Job, where Rob, whilst trying to drive through the city as fast as possible, is trapped behind an actor rehearsing the phrase "give me your badge and your weapon; I don't want to see you anywhere near this case" in such a variety of diferent voices and emphases he fails to notice the green light.
- 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.
- Kate in season 2 of Angel.
- Fox Mulder (The X Files), at least three times.
- Parody of this: Angry Beavers, "Dagski and Norb" (parodying Starsky and Hutch). The titular cops report to their superior about seeing a car that looked just like theirs... and end up turning in their badges anyhow because there was a report about "something bad going down" and their car being seen leaving the scene of the crime.
- Literary subversion: In Terry Pratchett's Discworld book Men At Arms, Patrician Vetinari takes Watch Captain Vimes off the case and demands that he turn in his badge. It eventually becomes clear to the reader that he is doing this to make sure Vimes solves it, though Vetinari goes a bit too far and drives Vimes into a Ten Minute Retirement. The trope also occurs more or less straight in the earlier novel Guards! Guards!, when Lupin Wonse takes Vimes' badge.
- Law And Order Special Victims Unit: 90% of the episodes starring Elliot Stabler.
- DCI Jack Spratt of Jasper Fforde's Nursery Crime series is stated in the book-within-a-book Bumper Book of Berkshire Records to have been suspended over 262 times in his career, only one of which led to higher action (a reprimand). This is mainly because both him and his supervisor are aware of the trope, and his supervisor makes a point of suspending him at least once per case more for dramatic effect than anything else.
- 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 at least one episode of Fillmore, the title character has to turn in his Safety Patrol sash.
- A character in Wild Things is asked to do this after his second lawful shooting, due to the (well-founded) fear of Da Chief that with that kind of luck, the shootings might not be so lawful after all. Of course, this isn't where the consequences end...
- Subverted in an episode of Cold Case, 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.
- Bud White from L.A. Confidential fits the brutal-cop part of the trope perfectly, but his Turn In Your Badge moment is undercut by the fact that his chief only did it to get leverage over White when he recruited him as muscle for a criminal enterprise.
- Officer Mike Brikowski from The Powerpuff Girls is a fat, lazy old cop who believes that the girls are a waste of space who just take work away from "hard-working" policemen like him. In the end he is fired for his laziness and forced to turn in his badge and reflective sunglasses, but for some reason is allowed to keep his firearm as "a little souvenir". He also has to give up his precious donut. He swears vengeance on the Powerpuffs, which he goes after unsuccessfully through the episode.
- Inspector Li from John Woo's The Killer is taken off the case of the good-hearted assassin that he's beginning to develop a bond with when he completely botches his attempt to capture him at the airport and brings in the wrong guy, allowing the killer to get away with his blinded girlfriend. He's taken off the case because the superintendent is convinced that Li is siding with the suspect rather than trying to bring him in.
- Subverted in New Tricks; 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.
- 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.
- Played with in a long-running cop show parody on the webcomic Checkerboard Nightmare. The trope is so routine that when the chief pulls it more often than usual, the title character protests that "we've already turned in our week's supply of badges!"
- Det. Mike Cellucci is asked for his badge in Blood Ties 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.
- Happened to FBI Agent Clarice Starling in Hannibal, the sequel to Silence of the Lambs. Except in this case she had followed every procedure to the letter and was suspended because a rival agent planted obviouly fake evidence against her in her office. Apparently everybody else in the FBI is either corrupt or incompetent.
- Happens to Montoya in the Batman The Animated Series episode "P.O.V.". (Bullock and an incidental character, Wilkes, are also forced to turn in their badges, but only Montoya keeps working on the case.)
- In Licence To Kill, James Bond pretty much turns in his badge to go after the iguana-stroking villain who dumped his best friend into a shark pool.
- Halt from Ranger's Apprentice deliberately creates a situation where he'll get banished from the kingdom so he can save his apprentice only to get misty-eyed when he must turn in his
ranger badge oak leaf necklace to the authorities as well.
- Parodied in South Park (now there's a shock) when Mr Garrison is fired.
Mr Garrison: I suppose you'll be wanting my badge and gun...
Chairman: Mr Garrison, most teachers do not carry a gun!
Mr Garrison: Oh, sorry. So I can keep it then?
- Parodied again near the end of We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story, when Stubbs the Clown resigns from Prof. Screweyes' circus and hands in his props. All his props: "Here's my shoes, my nose, my horn, my buzzer, my fake arm, my bug-eye glasses, my backstage passes, my hat, my rabbit, his backstage passes, my fake fangs, a few birds, my pogo stick, my donkey ears, my extending tongue gag, my rubber chicken... ya can't even get these anymore... my lucky whale tooth, and a giant clam that opens to reveal the American flag held by a mermaid and her normal brother Richard!" If you thought reading the description was funny, it's even better in the movie.
- DCI Gene Hunt gets suspended in both Life on Mars accused of murdering a boxing promoter and Ashes to Ashes 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!
- Parodied in this Onion Statshot
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