Would it be illegal, in a typical US jurisdiction, to, say, dump a quart of water on a stranger’s car which is parked on a public street? Assume the windows are up and there’s nothing weird about the car (like, it isn’t made out of sugar). Criminal mischief, maybe?
If it were illegal, what if it was about to rain anyway? That is, you didn’t do anything to the car that wasn’t imminent anyway (that is, get it wet).
What if it was about to rain and instead of dumping the quart of water on it all at once, you gently drenched it with a lawn sprinkler? (In this case, assume your specific intention was to get this stranger’s car wet for no particular reason, and not to water the lawn.)
My family and another were dining this evening at a restaurant with open garage doors. I was cleaning up the table, including a bunch of kid’s undrunk water glasses, and rather than find a place inside to dump all the water, I heaved it out across the sidewalk into the street. Some of the water splashed on a random truck parked in front of the restaurant. I thought to myself, “I wonder if the owner could have legal grounds for a case against that.”
A barking dog can be a criminal act, where there is a noise ordinance. Clearly no property damaged nor cost incurred by citizens to repair the effects. Similarly, littering is a harmless act.
I’m trying to imagine the reaction of a police officer (in just about any jurisdiction in the world) or the likes of Judge Judy when confronted with a complaint from said owner, in the circumstances you outline.
I don’t know about where you live, but in my country we have an offence called “wasting police time”.
Of course, it’s not impossible that a cycle of reaction and counter-reaction could, if pushed far enough, win either or both of you a spot in a “Nightmare Neighbour From Hell” sort of TV documentary.
There’s a legal principle (can’t remember the phrase, it’s one of those latiny ones) that the law doesn’t bother itself with trivial matters. It’s why you won’t get arrested for bumping into somebody or even pushing them (you will get arrested when they rightfully try to beat the **** out of you in response).
I doubt that. I’d love to see a link to your city’s code that makes noise violations a crime. And speeding is also not generally a criminal matter, unless you’re going criminally fast.
The City where I live has a noise ordinance, the local Police enforce it, the the citations can be written for pretty significant amounts. Warning, sarcasm: The ordinance came about on account of all the folks who thought that their music was worthy of being shared at a very high volume. These very considerate folks thought that being able to share their music when they were several blocks away would be well received. Sarcasm off.
With of course the usual disclaimer that laws differ from state to state.
Since there was no damage or even a chance for damage it would not be criminal mischief. The harmless act of just pouring water on a car would not be a crime unless the intent of the act was to alarm or annoy. Then it could possibly be harassment.