I remember one episode of the Andy Griffith Show in which Thelma Lou punched Barney in the nose and Barney, being a law enforcement officer (deputy sheriff), didn't arrest her afterwards. This episode was the one when Thelma Lou was trying to find a date for her unattractive cousin, Grace. I believe that Gomer Pyle was the one who was Grace's date. Well, after Gomer Pyle suddenly left, the others assumed he wanted no part of dating Grace.

Shortly afterwards in the squad car, Thelma suddenly punched Barney in the nose. Even though he was off duty, Barney was still a law enforcement officer and should have arrested her for assualt and battery (even a fist can be a deadly weapon). If I were Barney, I would arrest Thelma for socking me in the nose even though she was my girlfriend.

What do you think?

Sheriff Andy Taylor

I think arresting her would be extreme. He definitely should have dumped her though.

...Barney would NEVER arrest Thelma Lou because he knows he can't act as a "proper" law enforcement official around her. If he DID, that would have been the end of their relationship. Besides, the episode when he and Andy attend their class reunion, and discovers that Thelma Lou has married someone else, was "retribution" enough for her. Apparently, she really wasn't that "interested" in him after he left Mayberry.

There were a lot of times a person was not arrested, or at least not held, even though something illegal was done... in Man in a Hurry the man actually drove off with a pickup truck (I think it belonged to Wally, the fillin' station owner) [theft] when he was so frustrated by the inability to get his car fxied on a Sunday in Mayberry; the Darling family taking Aunt Bee [abduction], cheating the hotel [theft; misrepresentation], or trying to lure Helen out of her house from the front yard [criminal trespass]; Ernest T. Bass got nothing but a meaningless lecture for breaking so many windows [vandalism]; Goober, Andy's cousin, and maybe others using the squad car and siren and the courthouse for playing or personal endeavors [unauthorized use of public emergency equipment]; the couple in one of the later eps which left the baby in a basket in front of Andy's office [child endangerment; abandonment] (Andy just ends up telling them "If you ever do this again, you'll have to be reported to the child welfare agency").