A bizarre incident from 2017 has resurfaced with court documents where it was revealed that two LAPD cops were fired from duty for ignoring a robbery to continue their game of Pokémon Go and chasing the Pokémon Snorlax.
The incident reportedly took place in the year 2017 when two officers, Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell refused to respond to a robbery because they were too busy playing Pokémon Go. On January 7, the two officers tried to unsuccessfully appeal against their termination of employment which was upheld by the California court of appeals.
LAPD cops fired for chasing Snorlax in Pokémon Go: Case details
The lawsuit itself garnered mainstream internet attention when a 32-page PDF document related to the case was uploaded online. The document contains details of the conversation that took place between the two officers inside the car which was captured by an in-built video system.
The records state that the two officers first ignored a call to respond to a robbery. After their Snorlax hunt, the two cops were heard discussing Pokémon for nearly 20 minutes before setting off to hunt Togetic.
The two officers, when confronted with the allegations, denied that they were actively playing the game. They said that they were “monitoring the game through a Pokémon tracker application but not actually playing the game itself”.
Lozano insisted that by “capturing a Pokémon” he meant taking a photo of it to send to his friends. The two officers admitted to leaving their designated patrol area but said that they took the opportunity to make an extra patrol while chasing the in-game creature.
There doesn’t seem to be any way back for the officers after the court ruling but the presence of documents online has brought up memories of an earlier time when the game was at its peak. Pokémon Go has been known for causing traffic accidents when players try chasing in-game creatures, but such a story is still a first.
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