Two Los Angeles police officers were fired for chasing Pok\u00e9mon rather than fleeing robbers, court documents show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pair were parked nearby when a radio call came in for officers to respond to a shop robbery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But a review of their in-car camera footage showed they had been playing Pok\u00e9mon Go and chose to pursue a nearby Snorlax – a relatively rare catch – instead of providing back-up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pair denied playing the game but were sacked after an investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Virtual creatures
\nDetails of the case emerged when the most recent documents about their appeal – which was dismissed – were spotted by Axios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After ignoring a radio call for back-up, “for approximately the next 20 minutes, captured [the] petitioners discussing Pok\u00e9mon as they drove to different locations where the virtual creatures apparently appeared on their mobile phones”, the documents say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell had been on patrol when Macy’s department store was robbed, on 15 April 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another officer, Capt Davenport, who also heard the call, could see the shop – and another police car parked in a nearby alley, the court documents show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those nearby officers did not respond to the call, so Capt Davenport did so himself – and saw the other police car reverse down the alley and leave the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\nThe two officers later told a sergeant who had been trying to contact them to provide back-up they had not heard the radio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the in-car camera footage revealed they had discussed the call and decided not to respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, five minutes later, they could be heard talking about catching Pok\u00e9mon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Officer Mitchell alerted Lozano that ‘Snorlax\u2026 just popped up [at] 46th and Leimert'”, the documents say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pair then left in that direction to embark on a 20-minute gaming session and discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They could be heard talking about the successful capture of Snorlax and how difficult the battle with Togetic – another Pok\u00e9mon – was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The guys are going to be so jealous,” Officer Mitchell said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘Extra patrol’
\nBoth officers denied gaming on duty, telling the investigating detective Officer Mitchell had been reading aloud from a text group of other players “bragging about their scores”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Det McClanahan determined [the] petitioners were not being truthful,” the court documents say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\nA subsequent board hearing into misconduct found the pair guilty of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
failing to respond to a robbery call
\nmaking misleading statements
\nfailing to respond to the radio when contacted
\nplaying Pok\u00e9mon Go on duty
\nmaking false statements under investigation
\nThe “petitioners admitted leaving their foot-beat area in search of Snorlax but they insisted they did so ‘both’ as part of an ‘extra patrol’ and to ‘chase this mythical creature’,” according to the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their representatives had argued in-car recordings were not supposed to be used to record private conversations and should not have been used as evidence – but that was denied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pair then went to court, where their case was rejected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The appeal court also rejected the case, saying the two former officers’ rights had not been violated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two Los Angeles police officers were fired for chasing Pok\u00e9mon rather than fleeing robbers, court documents show. The pair were parked nearby when a radio call came in for officers to respond to a shop robbery. But a review of their in-car camera footage showed they had been playing Pok\u00e9mon Go and chose to pursue … Continue reading “Pok\u00e9mon Go: Police fired for chasing Snorlax instead of robbers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3672"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3673,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3672\/revisions\/3673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}