The experience was very positive from our side of things Your experience is almost certainly the common experience for people in your socio-economic group. Th

The experience was very positive from our side of things Your experience is almost certainly the common experience for people in your socio-economic group. The common worst case being they do let it slide and you are just left with wasted effort on your part. The problem is that you have no way of knowing ahead of time if you are going to get an outlier -- a cop who decides there is something hinky about you and focuses on that rather than whatever reason you solicited their help for. It is absolutely a rare event (somewhat less rare for other groups, but still rare). The problem is that the consequences of having one of those rare events happen to you can be life-ruining. It is a very real case of one bad apple spoiling the bunch. In your example, you had nothing to gain from the culprit's arrest and prosecution. The chance of you ending up on the wrong side of the law was quite small, but not zero. Perhaps the purse was recovered and they found a joint in it - even if the drugs didn't belong to your wife, you risk becoming the target of an investigation. Given that balance of low-chance, high-consequence risk with essentially zero upside it would make sense for most people in that situation to avoid it completely.