I might assume as much just from the prejudice of watching American cops in the fictional media.
The ones who are portrayed as protagonists/good guys are often obsessed assholes who will do whatever it takes to solve the case, ranging from manipulating witnesses to doing borderline illegal things. Then their bozo superior gets in the way because they don’t see how, actually, in this case it would be totally worth it to do something without proper procedure, and actually being a maverick cop who just follows his gut is perfectly good and okay.
They only remain “the good guys” because they happen to catch the bad guys.
The ones who are portrayed as protagonists/good guys are often obsessed assholes who will do whatever it takes to solve the case, ranging from manipulating witnesses to doing borderline illegal things. Then their bozo superior gets in the way because they don’t see how, actually, in this case it would be totally worth it to do something without proper procedure, and actually being a maverick cop who just follows his gut is perfectly good and okay.
They only remain “the good guys” because they happen to catch the bad guys.