The owner was another student.
Most of these students are idiots. At my sisters middle schoool, in one of the bathrooms someone wrote F**k Bush!!! Go Mexico!!! Bush is appeassing these racist idiots. I am pissed off.
Still would be arson if those are the laws applied. If that is the law, I can't help but side with the cops here. If I demand that the US obey the border laws, I have to side with the law here also.
Criminality? Destruction of property worth under X dollars is a crimal misdemeanor is virtually every jurisdiction. Ho, hum. DAs do NOT ordinarily concern themselves with misdemeanors unless they fancy that said concern will enhance their chances for re-election.
They ran their flag twice up a flagpole that wasn't theirs. The first time the caretakers of the pole (ROTC) removed it and returned it to them. The second time they removed it and disposed of it. It is a finding of fact whether the students had abandoned their property or not.