Still seems like the same thing..

I wouldn't normally beat up a guy, but if a police officer was in plainclothes beating the shit out of a woman on the street, I might do the right thing and beat him up.

This person might not normally cut down invasive surveillance technology, but if the police put up a fake flock camera in his neighborhood, he might do the right thing and cut it down.

Thanks for clarifying, didn't know the difference.

I should add that given the details it's not entrapment. At the same time though, there are thousands of flock cameras, and somehow the cops knew this particular spot for a fake one would lure someone in? There's no telling if they instigated it in some way not mentioned. And the charges they filed are very likely to fall apart anyway, because it wasn't a flock camera, it was a cheap decoy, and felonies are based on actual value, not imaginary. It also may not have been authorized to be installed. So the defendant could legally have been removing vandalism from a pole.

This is why you can't really adjudicate from a news story, there's a million unknowns, and often weird technical details to laws that aren't well known to the public. Top that off with most news information coming from defense lawyers giving an intentionally biased account of events, because the police don't just call the press most of the time. And when they do, it's usually to give their own damning version of events.