You seem smart. And even though I disagree with you, I appreciate your thoughts. But it's weird that you keep calling for logic, but you're not using it. You're ASSUMING he woke up late because his mom took the phone, and you're whole argument stands on that assumption. Because if it was the kid's fault for missing the bus, you can't blame the mother because there shouldn't have been an emergency at all.
So here:
A Black Teenager Asked for Directions. A Man Responded With Gunfire.
Brennan Walker, 14, of Rochester Hills, Mich., woke up around 7:30 a.m. on Thursday — too late. He had slept through his alarm and was going to miss the school bus.
Should we blame the mother for not sending him to bed earlier? Now, you'll either have to move the goalposts or place blame on the teen.
You decry ridiculous hypotheticals and arguments, yet you're unaware that you're the one flaming them with "IF the mother didn't"....arguments. I'm sure she knew the importance of the kid having a phone, because she provided one for him. So, to lecture her would be moot. She took it for a disciplinary reason. Sometimes you have to chose between what's best and what's right. YOU CANNOT BAT .1000 at controling outcomes, because you dont control all of the players. No matter how "logical" your moves are. That's what others mean by "you can't predict". You can handle things perfectly and still take an L.
I'm not all that concerned with him waking up late because if he woke up late, missed the bus and had his phone, there would have been no need for him to knock on the doors of strangers. Here's a quote from the article you linked.
Brennan did not have his smartphone that morning, and so, lacking assistance from GPS, he tried to follow the route his bus usually takes. He ended up in a quiet subdivision where the roads looped into each other, and when he noticed he had gone in a circle, he stopped to ask for help.
I agree, you cannot control outcomes which is a point in favor of not taking away a device that might aid your child in the event that an emergency situation happens. The mother took the phone away and "coincidently" he ends up in a situation where he needs a phone to reach out for help. Disciplining a child by taking away the one device that makes it possible for you and your child to communicate with each other is utter insanity. Other parents here have suggested the more practical solution of taking the phone away once the kid arrives home from school and giving it back in the morning before school.
Kids who have asthma can make it through an entire week without needing their pumps, imagine a parent taking away the pump as a form of punishment and the child has an asthma attack the next day. No one in their right mind would argue "how could she have possibly known that he would have an asthma attack". The point is, a device intended for emergencies should be accessible at all times. A counterargument might be, "a phone is not an asthma pump", which is correct, you can't snapchat from an asthma pump. When parents take their kids' phones away, it's typically because of the phones capabilities outside of making calls. Taking the phone away and sending the child into the world without the phone as a form of punishment signals the parent is very shortsighted and didn't buy the phone for the purpose of their kid having a emergency communications device but rather an entertainment device that can also makes calls, or "just another gadget".