POKEMON Go has resulted in some wild stories over the years with people doing stupid things to catch pokemon, but this one takes the biscuit.
Two LAPD officers have lost their appeal after they were fired in 2017 for ignoring a robbery to catch a Snorlax in Pokemon Go.
Officers Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell were spotted in their patrol car in the vicinity of an ongoing robbery at a Macy’s but failed to respond to calls for backup.
The ensuing minutes were filled with “chaotic” communications over the radio, but Officer Lozano was caught on the digital in-car video system (DICVS) recording saying “screw it”.
Five minutes later, the two police officers were finally spurred into action — by a nearby Snorlax in Pokemon Go.
For 20 minutes, they drove around on a pokemon hunt, catching a Snorlax and a Togetic.
Not realising they’d been caught on camera, when were asked why they failed to respond by their Sergeant, the two claimed they were in a loud area and couldn’t hear the radio.
After reviewing the footage, a misconduct investigation was opened up, “focusing on allegations that petitioners failed to respond to a robbery in progress call, made false statements to a supervisor, and neglected to handle a radio call.”
Astoundingly, in the face of the evidence, the Officers continued to deny they were playing Pokemon Go, saying it was a “social media event”.
They were fired but appealed, contesting the use of the DICVS recording, but they’ve now lost the appeal.
At the time the initial event happened, Snorlax was one of the rarest pokemon in Pokemon Go.
That may have factored into the two men’s frankly astounding decision to ignore a call for a robbery in progress at a Macy’s department store.
But they were already shirking off just minutes before, so the fact that the appeal has been denied is no surprise.
What is shocking is that there are police officers who have managed to keep their jobs over much more heinous actions.
One Twitter user @GSGtheOriginal posted a list of ‘LAPD fireable offences’ that has been doing numbers on Twitter:
- Harassment: No
- Racial Profiling: No
- Beating An Unarmed Suspect: No
- Shooting An Unarmed Suspect: No
- Killing An Unarmed Suspect: No
- Chasing Pokémon Snorlax: Yes
Either way, the Pokedex has finally been closed on this case.
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