I think most here provided me with good sound advice, I thank you. However, when all of this occurred I was sound asleep with my primary weapon at my side, something I've been doing for nearly 50 yrs.. Some of you know of a few of my personal encounters with criminals, of which had nothing to do with me pursuing or engaging them, but rather being randomly attacked, kidnapped, made to beg for my life with a gun shoved in my mouth, watch as my wife is made to beg for her life, on two separate, random, and unrelated occasions, robbed, had two attempts on my life by two criminals trying to blow my wife and I up in our car TWICE, just for refusing to pretend I saw nothing, when in fact, I saw everything and testified against them in court, just to mention a few such incidents. So yes, I am fed up with criminals which is an under statement, and it has no doubt effected my approach to these murderous individuals. I am not the average statistic by any stretch, I fall into the .00001% I would imagine. But I will not stand by and watch a criminal have his way, I will defend my property, my family, and anyone else who is in need of help. Only a coward would bow down to criminals, I've known a few who will simply look the other way while some innocent person is being attacked. It's wrong to allow crime to prevail! I won't suggest to anyone that they lay down their weapon and surrender to the bad guy, that's just ridiculous and cowardly in my opinion. I raised my children to take a stand against crime, with two in the armed forces, one in LE, and all willing to risk their life for any one of you just because you need help. Not because they want to be hero's, but because they believe that doing the right and just thing, trumps all else in a world of turmoil that is rampant with crime. Anyone having walked in my shoes for the last 45 yrs. might find their self rather fed up too, to put it mildly. And just to better clarify my purpose in posting this recent encounter in the first place, which I included in my first post, I was interested in addressing how poorly LE handled this incident, being that he is a dangerous person and needs to be pursued by someone, LE would be my first thought. Some mentioned moving away from the criminal element. Let me tell you this, I have moved 3 times since 2008 in an attempt to find a safer neighborhood, which brought me to this rural area I now live in, and based on much research. But it appears most don't report crime, but rather, just look the other way. which explains why my research came up short again.
As he took off with the bike, I was still in a half sleep daze and didn't think to grab my phone. And to add to that, I have only owned this technology for less than a year, ever, and have difficulty even remembering to take it with me at any other time. I'm elderly, disabled and made some mistakes, not the first time either. But as for disarming the perp, I was experiencing a health problem immediately following him going for the knife, specifically my heart, and needed to get home and take medication, which I deliberately avoided mentioning as I didn't want to get further thrashed by some for having pursued this individual being physically disadvantaged. But I was also very intent in making that phone call to LE in hope they could have caught him. In other words, I had a whole lot going on, much more than I had expected. Would I have done some things differently, of course, we always look at how we handled a situation, providing you've ever been faced one like this, and then wish in one hand, while we #$%& in the other.
My initial intention was to catch up to him, ask him to return it, and call it a day. If trying to retrieve one's property from a thief is out of character for most, than please be my guest and send that message to the bad guy, they seek out individuals of weak character.
If this incident can serve for others as a message of what not to do, then it has indeed served a purpose. But my concern was, and still is, how poorly LE has, and is addressing it.
As for citing state laws, I won't engage others on that. If you don't live in Arizona, you may not be familiar with our laws. I didn't produce a weapon until I had been confronted with a deadly weapon, which would not have been illegal in Az. if one's safety and welfare is being threatened, I didn't discharge the weapon, but I was prepared to if necessary, thank God it wasn't necessary. But we do have very different self defense laws than most states, and most LE endorse and support them here.
"When seconds count, the police are minutes away"
GS