[dkrich]

Awesome. There's nothing I hate more than thieves and there are few things more aggravating than having personal property violated or stolen.

A few years ago I had a bunch of cash and my debit card stolen from a gym bag. I tracked the purchases for the next day and then cancelled the card. I tracked the thief to a gas station nearby where he/she had put close to $100 on it. I asked the gas station owner to review the surveillance tapes, but as luck would have it, they weren't running any surveillance at the time. I filed a police report but was never able to catch the thief.

My only problem with the story is the part about having a friend ready to tackle the thief if he tried to run. This is very risky, not only because you are risking the friend's safety, but also because if the thief gets injured you could be on the losing end of a lawsuit. You have to be very, very careful when it comes to physical aggression. If you try to restrain somebody you had better have a damn good reason or you could be guilty of false imprisonment or false arrest.