Pacerdude, I had a somewhat similar situation happen at my parents house not too long ago. Long story short, some punk ass meth head thought my 19yr old brother was talking to his girlfriend. The guy showed up in broad daylight (nice, quiet neighborhood) and played home-run derby on his Jeep. This kid (a 24yr old) also left a threatening message on my brother's phone while in my parent's driveway.
Luckily my parents were not home and my brother was fast asleep when all of this was happening. The only thing damaged was the Jeep ($3000 in glass and body work) but the thought of this guy coming back for more was no good.
I found out about the whole incident about an hour after it happened. I was at my parents within minutes. I was seeing red, shaking, furious! My brother can hold his own.... but this dude crossed a serious line by coming to my parents house with a baseball bat. It took about 1/2 hour to calm myself down.
An hour later I had this guys phone #, home address, and name. I was no longer in "revenge" mode so I called and left a very short message for him to call me, which he did. I was calm but deliberate on the phone. This guy knew he got himself in too deep and was almost begging me not to "tell the cops". He offered to pay but nobody wanted his dirty money. I told him I wasnt going to come after him or anything like that. I just made sure he knew that coming back to my parent's home would be a very big mistake... I don't play with ball bats. We ended up pressing charges and found out this guy was already on probation and will likely be looking at jail time.
Anyway, that's my story, sorry to rant but I can relate to the overwhelming feeling of anger that you experience when you feel your family's safety has been compromised. Property in itself is not a big deal, you and your family's well being IS. Just think of how you want the situation to end and try to reach that conclusion without doing anything dumb
