I once saw one of the turds in action. I looked out my office window and saw a car stop behind an employee's truck. The driver got out while leaving the car running and door open, looked around, then ducked down below the employee's truck with a big wrench - he was going for the catalytic converter. The employee wasn't very productive, so I looked the other way.
Ha! Just kidding, the employee was great. I went flying down the stairs and out the door. (I could have called 911, or grabbed the camera phone on my desk, but I'm afraid I skipped the planning phase - I just ran. I didn't want to endanger any employees, so even though I ran past a lot of people, I intentionally didn't ask anybody to come with me. I did at least yell for someone to call 911). My first-two-seconds-plan was to jump on the guy and keep him on the ground until the police arrived. But during my second two seconds of thought, I realized that this was a property crime - nobody was being threatened or harmed - and wasn't sure I could even legally detain him, much less initiate a scuffle. So I opted to at least interrupt the crime, and make him uncomfortable enough to perhaps reconsider his line of work. I closed his car door and stood in front of it, said something dorky about not doing that, and suddenly wished he didn't have such a large wrench. Other options started to occur to me now (like taking his cars keys - or even his car) but it was too late to switch to yet another plan. Another great illustration of the importance of planning ahead, rather than just leaping in to action.
Fortunately his focus was on getting in his car, and my focus was on not getting hit by the wrench. We both achieved our objectives, and I ended up with the wrench. As he drove off, I smashed his rear window and got his license plate number. I saved the wrench for the police, though likely my fingerprints had wiped out his.
I tried looking up the law later to see what my legal options for stopping the guy were. I didn't find any solid info, just a whole bunch of widely varying opinions.
Of course, this is all way beyond the OP's scenario. I would "confront" an unplugger, but with no more than a politely-worded question about their objective if no harm was done. But that's all theoretical; in over a decade I have never been unplugged. In my experience (YMMV) having a catalytic converter stolen is more likely...
