Operation Lucky Bag - good idea or not?

There has been criticism concerning the Operation Lucky Bag. As a result of said criticism, police noted that there are six types of behavior by suspects in the Lucky Bag operation:

Opening the bag and rifling through the contents; removing money or other items; removing valuables and discarding the bag; hiding the bag; denying to an undercover officer that they had found the items; and displaying “furtive behavior” to see if they were being observed.

But what if they meet a psychopath? When Stan "Pampy" Barre, III went on his crime spree, he pretended to be a police officer after getting caught. How would New Yorkers deal with a psychopath like Stan "Pampy" Barre, III?