The most ironic thing here is that I do, in fact, support a citizen's right to defend himself or his property. I had someone trespassing on my property. They were going through the things on my porch, and I did in fact chase them off with a deadly weapon. If they attacked me, they would have had that weapon brandished at them, and could well have ended up dying. They likely would not have died given that I would have immediately administered effective first aid, and the weapon was not as immediately lethal as a firearm would be.
The difference is, I DID immediately see them trespassing and in immediate commission of a crime with a positive ID. The difference is, I didn't chase them down or attack them once they started running away and left my property, and when I saw that same individual some months later, I did nothing to confront them; they merely left and I let them do so without incident.
Instead, the folks here made several major mistakes. First, they did not have positive ID that the individual they spotted was the person breaking into houses. Second, they chased them down with the intent to do harm despite, third is their lack of immediate knowledge that the person they saw was the criminal that was breaking into houses.
Also, and I can't overstate this... THEY DID NOT HAVE POSITIVE ID that he was the actual B&E suspect.
It would be similar to if I had attacked the man who was attempting to break into my house when I saw him again months later. If I had done such a thing, it would have amounted to a senseless murder. In fact, I can only infer it was the same man because he was wearing a similar jacket and he left the area after seeming to have recognized me.