I remember the Netflix Marvel shows always had weird takes on this where they simultaneously insisted that cops shouldn't ever do anything illegal but also vigilante justice is absolutely necessary to stop crime.
So there's an episode (I think of Luke Cage) where a police detective quits her job, does a bunch of extrajudicial violence, and then gets rehired as a cop the next episode after she's done doing illegal stuff so it doesn't technically depict an active officer of the law being a vigilante.
so it doesn't technically depict an active officer of the law being a vigilante.
The thing is that it doesn't even matter if a person is technically a cop or not, if they are doing work for the police they are working as an agent of the police and are bound to Constitution in the same way that cops are. It would be ridiculous if cops were able to just get other people to violate constitutional rights for them and everything was just fine.
I remember many years ago the cops where I live got a secretary for a lawyer to search their office looking for marijuana and the evidence was eventually thrown out because a judge ruled that the evidence was illegally obtained since the secretary was now acting as an agent of the government.
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u/TheBurningEmu 19h ago
Copaganda shows basically always have some instance of the police breaking the law to get the perp but it's framed as a good thing.