In Hot Pursuit
My girlfriend and I were walking through a video arcade in Japan, heading to a large bookstore nearby. I noticed this young guy walking through the place as well. Something about him made him suspicious to me. I watched him from about five meters away, and he walked around the side of one of those photo booth machines, bent down, and looked under the curtain.
There was a group of girls inside. He reached in, grabbed one of their bags, and ran off. It took a second for me to react, but I dropped my bag and took off after him. He had a head start, but he also didn’t know a large foreigner was gaining on him quickly. He got outside and into the plaza in front of the book store I was going to.
At that point, he slowed down as he figured he’d made his escape, so I grabbed him from behind and threw him down onto the concrete. He had this look of combined shock and terror. I started screaming at the guy in a mix of Japanese and English when the group of girls whose bag he took showed up. Even though he was a thief and running, I couldn’t do much because I could have been charged with battery.
So, I screamed at him some more, gave the girls their belongings back, and told him to get out of there, and he ran off. The girls were very thankful, and my girlfriend was impressed. I guess everything went about as well as could be expected!