[127361]

And so do reinforced concrete walls, they block the signal and thus prevent emergency services from being contacted too. And so many other things. Radio communications are unreliable by default. Someone's prank should not result in criminal charges unless tangible harm has occurred.

[Reubachi]

Intent, not the act is 99 percent etc etc. Wether or not harm took place does not matter, if it did, the entire basis of our legal system would rely upon only direct evidence of violent acts.

This is why attempted murder, kidnapping, etc is a charge. We do not yet have a charge of "attempted mass personal device disablement". and there is no reasonable case for......"manslaughter" of a device.

Being "realistic"/less analagous; Your mobile device is the most important inanimate object to you in every single category imaginable. And this is the case for most of humanity for some time now. If someone knowingly removed my access to my personal device maliciously, I would suddenly start caring very much about seeing that persons freedoms taken away.

Edit: after rambling I wanna reiterate my first bit....intent is 99 percent. In this case, it's a kid. The law has context, and I think they should of course be lenient.

[127361]

Yes, and if the intent was to prevent access to emergency services, then yes that would rightfully be a crime. But if the intent was to pull a stupid prank that would temporarily disable someone's iPhone for 5 minutes, then that should not be a crime, if only done once.

The kid should be told not to do it again. And no law enforcement should have ever been involved in the first place. Otherwise we are teaching those children to distrust authorities, that authorities are unjust and unfair. Thus undermining the rule of law.

All their classmates are also involved and watching the outcome of the situation. Some might end up seeing the "system" as being unfair and are not going to think twice before stealing or committing some other crime, e.g. fraud.