Pokemon Go has proven very addictive over the years since it was released, and sadly Los Angeles police officers Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell fell victim to an addiction to the game. The two were fired for “willfully abdicating their duty to assist a commanding officer’s response to a robbery in progress and playing a Pokemon mobile game while on duty.”
The incident, which took place in April 2017, involved Mitchell and Lozano receiving a phone call from a nearby patrol officer to respond to a robbery at the Macy’s at Los Angeles’ Crenshaw Mall. The two did not respond, however, and instead backed down an alley and drove away, with video and audio evidence proving that they talked about responding to the robbery, but opted not to, because a few moments later, they noticed that Snorlax had appeared in Pokemon GO and decided to try capturing the creature.
From the official court documents:
“For approximately the next 20 minutes, [the in-car monitoring system] captured [Mitchell and Lozano] discussing Pokémon as they drove to different locations where the virtual creatures apparently appeared on their mobile phones. On their way to the Snorlax location, Officer Mitchell alerted Officer Lozano that ‘a Togetic just popped up.’”
“After Mitchell apparently caught the Snorlax – exclaiming, ‘Got ‘em’ – petitioners agreed to ‘go get the Togetic’ and drove off.”
Mitchell and Lozano then lied, saying they were only capturing “images” of Pokemon and weren’t playing a game and tried to claim that Pokemon GO was a social media event that was not advertised as a game. Eventually, Mitchell and Lozano confessed and were fired, but were looking to appeal the decision and lost their case this past Friday.