Thieves don't usually say "you caught me!" when confronted by police. They frequently claim they own the stolen items.

So what? If the person is non violent and cooperative why use cuffs?

Cops generally determine the risk of a suspect by the severity of a crime. A felony crime is considered a significant crime.

But regardless, cops put cuffs on everyone they arrest. The point being that they don’t know who is going to fight you to get away. People will fight to escape over the dumbest things.

It’s not really a huge injustice to sit in cuffs for a couple minutes while cops verify wtf is going on. I’m the first to criticize the cops but this isn’t really that kind of situation.

If I reported my car stolen, I would expect the cops to have a reasonable assumption that the person they find it with could be the thief.