Accomplices By Inaction in Live-Action TV series.
- On The 100, Clarke and Lexa know that Mount Weather is going to launch a missile at a village. They could evacuate the village in advance of the missile, but that would tip off Mount Weather that they have an informant inside the mountain. To preserve this secret, Clarke and Lexa tell no one about the missile and simply save themselves. Abby and Octavia, who were in the village when it hit, do not take this well.
- The 4400: In "Rebirth", NTAC discovers that Edwin Mayuya, a Rwandan member of the 4400, emigrated to the United States in April 1994 using a false identity. His real name is Edwin Musinga and he is wanted by the Rwanda government for aiding and abetting the Tutsi genocide. Musinga was a Hutu who ran a clinic which primarily catered to Tutsis. The police approached him and asked if he would allow the clinic to be used as a safe house for the Tutsi. He agreed and the word quickly spread among the local Tutsi community. Within three hours, the clinic was full. However, unbeknownst to Musinga, it was a trap. The police returned and slaughtered the Tutsi. While Musinga did not kill anyone personally, he did nothing to prevent the massacre as he blamed the Tutsi for the Hutu President of Burundi Cyprien Ntaryamira's plane being shot down.
- In Babylon 5, the whole plot where Londo could have stopped everything bad that happened to the Narns with "One word."
- Barney Miller: In "Noninvolvement", Wojo arrests Al Mitchell for not getting involved to stop a pursenapper, only prompting him by saying "Grab him" instead of identifying himself as an officer. After Mitchell protests the circumstances of his apprehension, he has a disagreement with Arnold Ripner, and after Wojo offers Mitchell a bowling ball, he declines it because it has 2 finger holes, dropping the charges after Wojo offers Mitchell an apology.
- Camelot: Morgan's reason for hating Igraine is apparently this, as Igraine never opposed her father when he tried to destroy her childhood. It appears later on that there is also a dose of Irrational Hatred in this since Igraine couldn't have escaped Uther's will (he was really a domineering violent king). When Morgan stabs Igraine in the season 1 finale, her stepmother reveals that Uther wanted to kill his own daughter, and that she convinced him to simply send her away in a convent to protect Morgan.
- Charité at War plays in Nazi Germany and makes this a huge theme; protagonist Anni has to recognize this about herself. Like many others, she isn't exactly a full-on Nazi, but she never did or said anything when "undesirables" were systematically sorted out and murdered by the eugenics programme. That attitude is decried by dissidents like her brother Otto, but it's still extremely prevalent — even Professor Sauerbruch, a supporter of the resistance, is not innocent of it. Anni learns to acknowledge her guilt.
- Control Z:
- Raúl, aka the hacker, in the murder of Luis as he had set up the fight between him and Gerry in the first place but did not do anything to intervene when it quickly escalated, aside from only desperately pleading with Gerry to stop, to no avail.
- Quintanilla as well, even lampshaded by Luis's mother. When Quintanilla found out about the fight, he locked Gerry up, only for him to be released by Alex on the hacker's orders, so Quintanilla handled the situation very poorly.
- The students themselves who witnessed the fight also didn't do anything to prevent Gerry's violent rampage from going any further, even some of their pleads for Gerry to cool down didn't help at all.
- Gerry became The Bully at the school (even towards Luis) as a result of his father's emotional abuse, especially after Gerry showed him a drawing Luis made of him, which led to his father making a homophobic comment about it. Gerry's mother, on the other hand, is more calm, understanding and possibly open-minded than her husband, yet she was unable to prevent the abuse from going any further.
- Alex, Gerry and Pablo in Susana's accidental murder caused by Sofía, Javier, María, Claudia and Raúl. While Alex and Gerry can only watch in horror as the six of them fight over the stolen money bag for their own purposes, Pablo, who witnesses the murder outside of the school premises, simply leaves her to bleed out on the sidewalk by taking the money and driving off in his car.
- Criminal Minds uses it sometimes as character backstory, regarding the target of the unsub's anger.
- One of the unsubs in the episode "The Perfect Storm" had an abusive father and brother. When the police finally got involved, the mother covered for them, claiming the unsub was lying about the abuse. The person the unsub blames most is, of course, the mother for enabling the abuse, not the father and brother for actually enacting it.
- Likewise, in the Poorly Disguised Pilot for Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, the European unsub was abused by his father, but his American stepmother and stepsiblings were spared the abuse (it's never specified how aware of the situation they were, but no indication was given that they participated). Thus, his rage is targeted towards American families (with particular hatred for the father figures).
- One episode had an unsub going after the bullies who drove his friend to suicide in high school. Well, one of the bullies, and also the parents of the girlfriend of another bully (he was out of town), and also the principal who he felt didn't do enough to remedy the situation, and also a substitute teacher who did help break up a prank, but apparently not well enough.
- The unsub in "Elephant's Memory" targets his revenge attacks at the actual people who he feels actively harmed him (the football team who bullied him, his negligent father, and his girlfriend's abusive father). It's Reid who insists on assigning responsibility on those who could have stepped in sooner, but didn't. He outright tells a room full of police officers that they could have prevented his murder spree.
- The season 1 CSI episode "Blood Drops" has the team investigating a murder scene where the parents and two sons of a family were killed in their home, but the two daughters survived. Turns out Dad had been sexually abusing the older teenage daughter, leading to the birth of the younger one. He then turned his attention to the younger daughter, who was seven at the time. The teenage daughter hired her boyfriend and some of his friends to kill Dad to stop the abuse, and had the other family members killed because they never tried to stop Dad.
- Dark Desire: Eugenia's father, who was also a cop himself, didn't do anything to stop his daughter's rapist, telling her that they shouldn't get involved in such troubles.
- Desperate Housewives has this as the main motive of Paul Young in Season 6, after the titular housewives knew he was framed for murder and refused to do anything to assist. Further, they also refused to visit him or show him any kindness.
- In the third season of Game of Thrones, several guards help Lord Karstark kill two young Lannister squires who'd been held hostage, as revenge for the deaths of Karstark's children. Robb orders the men responsible hanged, and when one protests that he was only the watcher, Robb decides to have him hanged last so he can watch the others die.
- The Haunting Hour: In "Mrs. Worthington", the titular villain planned to punish Nate's mother for not doing anything to stop Molly from bullying Nate.
- Justified
- Hunter Mosley was the sheriff of Harlan County when Henry Crowder kidnapped, raped and murdered Mosley's young niece. Henry fled and the other members of the Crowder family refused to reveal where he was hiding. Mosley made a Deal with the Devil with a Miami drug cartel and with their help located Henry and murdered him in revenge. He then went after the other Crowders and while he could not have them arrested as Henry's accomplices, there were plenty of other crimes they were guilty of and could be sent to prison for. Even years later he still holds a grudge against the Crowders even though the remaining members of the family had no role in the matter.
- Ava Crowder was abused for years by her husband Bowman until she finally had enough and shot him dead. All the locals knew what was happening and have no real problem with what she did since they feel that Bowman deserved what happened to him. However, when they try to express this sentiment to her she rebukes them because none of them tried to help her when she was abused so their words mean nothing to her. The only one to apologize for his inaction is Bowman's brother Boyd and Ava forgives him after he risks his own life to save her from his father Bo Crowder.
- This trope is subverted by Limehouse who runs the black community of Noble's Hollar and has for years offered sanctuary to the abused women of Harlam County. As a result Limehouse now has a network of grateful women who provide him with information on all the important things happening in the region.
- Canonically, on Once Upon a Time, this is probably supposed to be Regina's motivation for extracting revenge on Snow White, who was manipulated by Regina's mother Cora into revealing the identity of Regina's lover, all despite swearing to never to say a word about it to Cora, who then killed him. This is left ambiguous and she may believe that Snow White was more than negligent and planed it all from the start.Regina: (having an Indulgent Fantasy Segue about strangling the girl) "My mother corrupts young souls. If you had been stronger, none of this would've ever have happened..."
- Seinfeld's infamous two-parter Grand Finale involves the gang watching a fat guy get carjacked and mugged and just standing there videotaping the whole thing while making fun of his weight the whole time, only to run afoul of a "Good Samaritan Law" requiring them to assist anyone they see in danger. The prosecutor then proceeds to track down every single person they've ever pissed off over the course of the entire series and has them testify about their horrible character, which gets them found guilty and sentenced to a year in prison.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: In the episode "Duet," it turns out that Kira's Cardassian prisoner is pretending to be an infamous war criminal. He was actually a minor functionary who simply did his job while the war crimes were going on all around him. He feels so guilty about his silent complicity that he wants to get himself executed in a public reckoning for his people's crimes.
- One episode of Supernatural features a psychic boy out to kill his abusive father and uncle. He's also after his mother, because she didn't do anything to stop it.
- Subverted in an episode of Taggart; members of a criminal gang are being murdered and the prime suspect is the daughter of a have-a-go-hero who got beaten to death for his trouble (by the leader, the other gang members just stood by). They arrest her after she shoots said leader however when they try to call her out for killing the other gang members, she denies it. They realize that said leader had manipulated her into shooting him (he was wearing a bullet proof vest) and was the one who killed his former partners in crime.
- In the That '70s Show episode "Halloween," the gang breaks into their old elementary school, which burned down years before for some Halloween hijinks. Just as they decide to leave becuase they're not having any fun, Jackie and Donna come in with their old permanent records. When they look into Hyde's file, it says that he's a born criminal with no future because he smashed a girl's diorama, which he denies doing. Eric then confeses that he smashed the dioram because he was jealous of how much better hers was. Hyde then starts blaming Eric for how he has been treated by everyone, saying that he was pegged as a troublemaker because Eric just stood by while their teacher yelled at him for something he didn't do.
- In V (2009), this culminates for Erica after she must watch her ex-husband die in her arms because of an attack by the aliens, just after escaping that everyone thinks was a kidnapping, and is just narrowly cleared of accusations of being The Mole. But this is not over, because she must bear her son Tyler's sneering comments about how she couldn't save her husband and should have, leading to Failure-to-Save Murder. She is understandably angry and depressed and this sounds shocking to her, just like the cases of teenagers chastising the church for not meddling in V politics. Though, when you read Tyler's previous actions, you realize that he often blamed her for not helping the cute (ruthless homicidal totalitarian) and charismatic Hive Queen of the Vs, his friends, or himself when she could barely intervene...
