boys out damaging property

[Klpno]

Hello everyone
I'd like to ask about the meaning of the phrase "boys out damaging property" in the following context.

The city kept sliding past.
"Is that a body? -- she asked suddenly.
What might be a mockman was lying on its side, tucked against the foundation of a long house. Or was it just trash dressed in a blanket. Jopale wasn't sure, and then they had passed both the body and the street. With his own quiet voice, he said, "It was nothing."
"It was human," Do-ane said.
"A sleeping mockman," he offered. "Or a dead one, maybe. But that means nothing. Disease or age, or boys out damaging property, maybe."
"Do you think so?" Do-ane asked hopefully.
"Oh, yes," he said. And because it felt good, he again said that word. "Yes." Then he added with his most reasonable tone, "If the gas was that terrible, the streets would be jammed with suffocating bodies.
She looked at him, desperate to believe those sordid words.

I understand the phrase itself but what does it mean in this context. The only idea I have is that Jopale thinks that some boys deliberately killed or injured a mockman -- in this SF story mockmen are used as servants to people, so maybe it is possible to call them "property" but I'm not very sure in my own interpretation.

[Mister Micawber]

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Yes, I agree with your interpretation-- some delinquents perhaps killed the mockman.
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_________________
Native English teacher at Mister Micawber's

[Klpno]

Thank you very much, Mister Micawber.