The scnerio you used is one that someone would do to be meanspirited or cruel. I doubt that what these kids set out to do.
The story doesn’t say what they used to pressurize the bottle, so I doubt that it was truly ‘caustic’. That word was used because if they said what was really used most people would laugh at the police.
I’m not questioning the kids’ motives,whether they were just having innocent fun (puke) or malicious...what they were doing was stupid. It has been around for a few years and the person who sent it to me was from Houston, where there were some injuries.