One of the advantages, or disadvantages, depending upon the perspective, of a highly militarized city in wartime was the increased presence of guards. There was a tall Redguard in a city watch armor who had witnessed the entire ordeal.  The guards were all heavily armed an armored, so the thief's original plan had relied not upon avoiding being spotted, but simply upon slipping away before the much slower, less agile guards could hope to catch or identify him. However, being delayed, even for only a few seconds, would allow the guard plenty of time to react, and Janius was ensuring that he was going nowhere. Not to mention, the screams of pain from Janius' effortless twisting of his joints made the scene quite obvious to everyone around them. 

The guard who had witnessed the attempted robbery quickly grabbed the attention of another nearby guard and hurried over to the scene of the altercation. He had his hand on the hilt of his sword, though it was still in its scabbard. He shouted, not necessarily threateningly, but loudly and firmly enough to clearly be heard over the crowd. "Release him, Imperial. The Sentinel guard will handle this from here." One of the guards commanded. 

The other Redguard had something of a suspicious look in his eye, particularly as he looked down at Julan. The young Argonian was not showing as much of a pained reaction as a normal child of his age would to such a heavy strike, due to the fact that his regular transformations gave him a higher than average pain tolerance. "The boy is...much stronger than he looks, isn't he?" The Redguard commented as his partner was moving to arrest the thief.