Brawling is not considered a crime unless you decide to draw a weapon or cast a spell. It is easy to accidentally cast a ranged spell and hit someone with it, and get a bounty over your head as well as turn the people in town to hostile towards you. Be careful with your weapons and spells in town. If you manage to escape to a different hold where you do not have a bounty, the guards there will ignore you. When you have a bounty on your head, guards will attempt to approach and arrest you. Note that if you are going to kill the witnesses, you should do it as soon as possible, otherwise some of them would have already reported your crime to the guard. However if in attempting to get rid of the witnesses, you commit more crimes that are witnessed by additional people, the bounty will rise.

If you manage to eliminate all of the witnesses to a crime shortly after it has been committed, the bounty will not take effect. Anyone who sees you commit the crime is a witness. The amount of that bounty depends on how serious the crime is. The following actions are considered crimes and are reported if you are detected: -Murder -Theft -Killing chickens or other farm animals owned by people -Stealing items or horses -Pickpocketing Items -Trespassing -Interfering with official empire business -Not following guards' orders -Picking a Lock -Starting a fight (defending yourself is not a crime) -Killing a non aggressive character When a crime is reported, a Bounty is placed on your head for the hold you are in.

Skyrim 1000 bounty for no reason