Be very careful there. In lots of places you make a citizen's arrest without having probable cause to believe they committed a felony, or witnessing a crime, o

Be very careful there. In lots of places you make a citizen's arrest without having probable cause to believe they committed a felony, or witnessing a crime, or various other legal requirements. If as you say the details were not "quite clear" to you when you attempted to make the arrest, that could already be a very serious problem for you if it came to court. Even if you think you have probable cause, chances are quite good that the court will see it differently. Being part of a frenzied rioting mob chasing someone down and you hear people shout "get him, he murdered someone" will not necessarily cut the mustard. And even if you did have probable cause, and whether or not they had committed a crime, your actions might give them a reasonable fear for their life, or otherwise that may cause them to respond to you. I'm not a lawyer but I have heard more than one say that citizens arrests are just a bad idea all around. You can easily open yourself up to injury, death, or being convicted on charges of falsely making the arrest or the injuries or deaths that result in the escalation. The correct advice is to never escalate a potentially violent situation. Never try to detain anybody, never threaten anybody with a gun, never attack anybody. If you fear that you or someone else is in imminent danger of being killed or seriously injured then you should do what you think is necessary to prevent that. But of course that is not escalation.