Couple of years ago I was in a shopping mall. Mother with a little girl in her arms had parked a giant stroller near the entrance to the store so it wouldn't be in anyone's way. She hadn't realized that her purse was sitting on top of the canopy/sunshade.
Punk kid sauntered by, grabbed the purse and ran. I gave chase. He ran down the hallway adjacent to the store and took off for the escalator when he saw me behind him. Mall was packed so I yelled, "Stop that guy!" Of course no one did anything but stare. We both had to shove past some people on the way down but it slowed him enough that I got close.
At the bottom of the escalator he turned left and ran into a glass door that was locked. Bad luck. He turned around and tried to rush past but I grabbed hold of his coat and he sort of spun and fell to the floor. I quickly put my knee in his back and grabbed an arm so he couldn't move. In less than a minute mall security was there and pulled me up off the guy. At first they thought it was a fight but others quickly chimed in to say the guy had stolen a purse.
I'm 170 LBS soaking wet so I don't usually go looking for trouble but something about the helplessness of the mom and opportunistic nature of the punk compelled me to do something. I couldn't just stand there. Turns out they had been looking for this guy as he had robbed others.
Interestingly the mom was not as appreciative as I had expected. She gave me a lukewarm, "Oh, thanks," and wandered away. No biggie - I felt pretty good about myself that day
