Busting car-thieves in the middle of the night

Yeah, that's what I've been doing lately. Well, as I was sound asleep Sunday night...I heard this peculiar sound from a car that wasn't going away - around 2:45am. Normally, you would hear a car go by but, this was different so, I got up from the bed and looked out the window and what do i see!!! a guy sitting in front of a car parked on the road fiddling with the license plate...happened to be the car of our neighbour's guests visiting from Seattle. I called Harvie right away and he called the cops. After about 2 min. while we were watching from our window...one of the guys spotted us and walked away slowly into his car and started to drive away. I quickly turned off our front porch lights (smart move)...opened the door and ran down our driveway to get a glimpse of the license plate of the Black Cadillac CTS that they were driving...think of it now - what was i thinking. Anyway, that didn't help cuz the license plate no. that we'd given the cops turned out to be a Red Honda - well, they probably had swapped from the numerous plates they must have on hand. We're all set to go back to sleep and I hear that weird sound again. These guys had guts...cuz, after 15 min. they were back at it. We called the cops again and I was getting my camera ready and I guess they heard us talking on the phone upstairs as the voice echoes a lot; and they fled away, their car making a screeching sound. The cops came after 15 min. of this whole ordeal - so typical - i thought that happened only in Bollywood. Anyway, we slept away...i just had to snooze my alarm and ended up going to work late...so, my whole day was delayed by 2 hrs. but, it was worth it. Followed up with the neighbors in the morning...found out that they had taken the license plate from the back so, their job was half done no wonder they kept coming back...told them to call the cops and refer to our experience. They got the plate back - wonder if the cops did actually catch the culprits - a medium height white bald heavy built guy and a short skinny chinese guy with a cap - kinda like Laurel and Hardy with a twist - what a combination.