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Pen. Code, § 653t · Chapter 2. Of Other and Miscellaneous Offenses

Pen. Code, § 653t

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) A person commits a public offense if the person knowingly and maliciously interrupts, disrupts, impedes, or otherwise interferes with the transmission of a communication over an amateur or a citizen’s band radio frequency, the purpose of which communication is to inform or inquire about an emergency.

(b) For purposes of this section, “emergency” means a condition or circumstance in which an individual is or is reasonably believed by the person transmitting the communication to be in imminent danger of serious bodily injury, in which property is or is reasonably believed by the person transmitting the communication to be in imminent danger of extensive damage or destruction, or in which that injury or destruction has occurred and the person transmitting is attempting to summon assistance.

(c) A violation of subdivision (a) is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000), by imprisonment in a county jail not to exceed six months, or by both, unless, as a result of the commission of the offense, serious bodily injury or property loss in excess of ten thousand dollars ($10,000) occurs, in which event the offense is a felony punishable by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170.

(d) Any person who knowingly and maliciously interrupts, disrupts, impedes, or otherwise interferes with the transmission of an emergency communication over a public safety radio frequency, when the offense results in serious bodily injury or property loss in excess of ten thousand dollars ($10,000), is guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 2011, Ch. 15, Sec. 436. (AB 109) Effective April 4, 2011. Operative October 1, 2011, by Sec. 636 of Ch. 15, as amended by Stats. 2011, Ch. 39, Sec. 68.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=PEN&sectionNum=653t.
Text hash
sha256 aa09bec080f80257ffcd8beb94852577c1770457a0c3dd4a9c8096e53aa1828c
Composed by
compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

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