Salt Lake City Kids Trespassing at School Charged After Being Turned in by Parents

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Several Salt Lake City kids trespassing at a school were charged with burglary and fleeing police after being turned in by their parents.

Missing school already

Photo by: haven’t the slightest

A passerby of Edison Elementary School in Salt Lake City alerted police when they observed several kids climbing a ladder to access the roof of the school just before midnight. Police responded and were able to apprehend most of the kids while a few ran off. Soon after the kids who ran came back accompanied by their parents. Authorities discovered the teens had broken a skylight on the roof to access the interior of the building and once inside, had stolen electronic items.The kids who were trespassing at the school after hours and during the off season were charged with burglary. The ones who ran and were caught by the police or their parents were charged with fleeing police.

Trespassing vs burglary

Although the kids had committed trespassing at the school, they were charged instead with burglary.

  • Trespassing – Utah Code 76-2-206 states “A person is guilty of criminal trespass if, under circumstances not amounting to burglary . . . the person enters or remains unlawfully on . . . property and intends to cause annoyance or injury to any person or damage to any property, including the use of graffiti .. . [or] intends to commit any crime, other than theft or a felony”. Since the kids did commit a theft, the trespassing charges are enhanced to burglary.
  • Burglary– According to Utah Code 76-6-202,”An actor is guilty of burglary who enters or remains unlawfully in a building or any portion of a building with intent to commit [a crime such as] a felony [or] a theft”.

Trespassing on building other than a dwelling is a class B misdemeanor. If someone trespasses and steals something, that is burglary and is punished as a third degree felony.

Tough lesson

The teens were booked into a juvenile detention center where they await the repercussions of their actions.It is not known if the kids arrested for burglary had a previous criminal history or if this was just a poor decision made from summer boredom mixed with too much freedom and peer pressure. Regardless, they would greatly benefit from being represented by an experienced juvenile defense attorney.