It was our favorite kind of crime story — the one where the bad guys get caught. It was even better because we knew the victim who was doing the chasing.

The police scanner crackled Tuesday with a dispatcher reporting a home burglary with a twist — the victim was at home, caught the burglars in the act, and was chasing them. Then things got more interesting when we heard the name of the victim on the scanner. It was Ty Barbour, a longtime Enterprise-Record photographer who retired last year.

The burglars apparently were riding through the neighborhood on bicycles, saw Barbour”s fishing boat parking in the driveway and started helping themselves to what was inside. Maybe the two criminals figured the homeowner would be at work.

Barking dogs alerted Barbour”s daughter to what was going on outside. She took photos of the suspects before they ran, clearly picking up a skill from her father. Those photographs were used to help identify the thieves after Barbour chased them in his vehicle and police apprehended them.

Dave Mclain, 39, and Patrick Price, 30, were arrested. Police were familiar with them. Certainly, their would-be heist of a few things out of a modest boat wasn”t their first crime. Sure enough, a business owner who saw a radiator and other items in TV footage of the arrest recognized some things in the thieves” bike trailer as his.

Now, we don”t recommend vigilantism for everybody. Certainly the thieves were hoping for an 80-year-old victim who couldn”t chase them down, not somebody as spry as Barbour. But such encounters are liable to increase as crime increases and people get more fed up with it. Some people may opt for a public safety tax. Others may be more careful about locking doors. And others will be the victim who, out of character, decides to fight back because he or she is just so ticked off at being victimized.

The hardest thing for all citizens to admit is that Chico isn”t Mayberry anymore. Most people don”t admit it until they become victims — and those conversions are happening multiple times a day. We”re talking hundreds of vehicle burglaries and home burglaries every year.

In a city where people have fond memories of leaving doors unlocked when you”re at home or leaving your car keys on the floorboard, it”s hard to let go of that peace of mind and switch over to the quasi-paranoid feeling that every person walking down the sidewalk is casing your place.

Unfortunately, though, that”s the attitude you have to take. You don”t leave valuables in your car, even if they”re locked in the trunk. You don”t leave the door unlocked at home, even when you”re there. You don”t leave the garage door open. You don”t leave anything in the boat. Anything worth roughly the equivalent of a cheap hit of meth needs to be locked away.

That”s the best way to fight back. Limit the opportunities. But if it comes down to it and you have to help police catch the petty thieves, that can be rewarding. We hope for your sake it doesn”t come to that.