Officers from the Los Angeles Police Department fired: It’s more than six years from the glorious times of Pokemon Go, where stories were told of crowds of players looking at their phones and screaming out random Pokemon names were commonplace.
But, the fact that those mobs have mostly gone or are limited in Pokemon Go Festival events does not mean there aren’t players looking for the rare Pokemon.
There are certain professions and instances where spawn points have to put aside to deal with problems in the real world, as two police officers learned recently.
The story was first published in the first place by Stephen Totillo of Axios that two LAPD officers dismiss for allegedly not responding to a message on their radios because they were trying to find the wild Pokemon spawn that appeared in Pokemon Go.
Court documents reveal the sequence of events that resulted in the firing of both officers. In addition, they expose the reasons that led to the officers’ tardy or no reaction.
Court documents released through the California courts described the sequence of events during the night during the incident.
The two officers, Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell, film on their DICVScameras or dashcams.
They discussed the sequence of incidents in the case. For example, after receiving a request to respond to robbery-in progress made on the radio. The dashcam captured two officers deliberating on responding to the signal and then didn’t respond.
Afterward, one of the officers pointed out the possibility of having a Snorlax.
They were a rare Togetic that was spawning on the map for nearby within Pokémon GO.
It was not know to them, but it appears that an officer of the superior rank, who were on patrol in the same region, observed Mitchell’s and Lozano’s squad car in an alleyway that they drove off in and make a turn to the opposite direction from the call, leading to this.
As we mentioned previously, the robbery and subsequent refusal to take action by the two officers occurred in 2017.
Officers from the Los Angeles Police Department fired
The officers’ defense claim that they were discussing the game and not actively playing when they were on duty.
They claimed they didn’t hear about the incident due to an ear-splitting sound coming from nearby parks.
Another excuse was that they were not hunting the Pokemon.
However, they were using the Pokemon Go tracker site (something popular at the time) very popular in the time) to locate the location of the rare Pokemon spawns.
Also, they claimed dashcam recordings were not design to capture “private conversations” and could not use against the individuals.
The judge dismissed the case and affirmed the decision to terminate.
Anybody can say, “there’s a time and place for everything,”. And trying to capture Pokemon when you’re working is not a safe option.
Being able to play a game working is an issue. Not answering a request to do something, especially in law enforcement, is an additional one. And it’s not difficult to understand why officers to fire.
Pokemon Go can download for Android as well as iOS devices.