Unless they had obvious reasons to believe they needed to prevent imminent physical harm to someone, I don’t believe they had any right to “load up” a truck, brandish firearms, and confront another person at gunpoint. I don’t care what one of the guys “used to do” for a living, he’s no longer a LEO, and once the situation gets away from him, he’s going to bear the consequences of how ever it turns out. He has no duty to physically address the situation while brandishing weapons.

Let’s just say the guy was visually observed fleeing a crime scene, and truly was guilt of theft. He’s running away (not moments away from harming another person). A truck of unidentified people roll up on him, armed, yelling at him. They confront him on foot, brandishing weapons. Only thing I know to think is “these people ain’t cops and they’re fixin to kill me. I better fight for my life”. Thug criminal or not, what was he supposed to do? Robbery is not punishable by death, especially by lay citizens. These people weren’t cops, for all he knew they were going to load him up in that truck and take him somewhere for Bubba justice. My personal opinion: if yer gonna attempt a citizens arrest while armed and waving a gun around, it better damn well be a situation where you are OK however it turns out, due to time-is-of-the-essence emergency life critical circumstances. Cuz you are going to bear the consequences for both YOUR actions and THEIR actions relative to that gun you are waving around.