At first I thought, "Wow, he's much braver than I am."

But "audacious" and "bold" are probably better words to describe it. Maybe I'm overly cautious, but it's inherently risky to confront someone who has taken your property since they have already shown a willingness to break the law. It's a coin toss whether they will perceive the confrontation as a threat and react violently.

All that without even considering that he was dealing with a police officer who, de facto, will be given the benefit of the doubt in a confrontation and may behave accordingly. Not all cops are bad, I think most are good actually, but you have no way of knowing which one you will get in a situation like this. I'm very glad that this ended well (as well as it could have) for him.

I do not think the victim knew in advance that he would re-encounter the cop when he went to the location that the tracker was reporting.

Great, so they steal your stuff and you can't even confront them about it

The victim didn’t know whose house it was until the cop answered the door