Presumably the media article is sensationalizing the story a bit. Given the spectrum analyzer screenshot in the article, the jammer in question was flooding the

Presumably the media article is sensationalizing the story a bit. Given the spectrum analyzer screenshot in the article, the jammer in question was flooding the 850 Mhz area spectrum with wave noise, jamming LTE/5G internet access in a localized area in the town. I would assume that the cellular provider probably was called by numerous customers in the local area asking why their cellular access was going down, and they deployed a spectrum analyzer to troubleshoot the issue. This is common - interference from everything from misbehaving power supplies to leaky TV cables can cause interference that cellular engineers troubleshoot all the time. Once they noticed a jammer was being used they contacted law enforcement. The real problem here is that these jammers will also deny phone access (read: 911 / 112) and can also jam public safety communications radios which also sometimes operate in the same spectrum.