Pokémon Go: Two police officers would rather play than intervene in a robbery

Created: 01/12/2022, 10:20 AM

By: Ömer Kayali

Pokémon GO more important than robbery - police prefer to chase Relaxo © Niantic / Frank Sorge / IMAGO (Montage)

Two Los Angeles cops wanted to catch a Snorlax at Pokémon Go rather than helping colleagues with a robbery.

Every experienced "Pokémon Go" * player knows that Snorlax is one of the most difficult monsters to catch in the game.

Two officers from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) were probably aware of this when they spotted one on their cell phones - and actively chose to ignore a call for help from a colleague in order to catch the Pokémon.

But this behavior had consequences for the two Pokémon enthusiasts.

"Pokémon Go": LAPD police prefer to catch Pokémon than criminals

According to the court records (via

), the two LAPD police officers were caught because the camera on the dashboard of the patrol car recorded them

. The recordings showed that the two even twice ignored the request to respond to an ongoing robbery. "I don't want to help him," can be heard on the recording. The policeman was referring to a police captain who called for reinforcements during a break-in in a shopping center in the immediate vicinity. Later he also said: "Oh, fuck it", determined not to respond to the radio message. According to the report, the officers drove around and for the next 20 minutes

.

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When they were later asked by their sergeant why they weren't responding to the active break-in, they told him they were talking and hadn't heard the call.

However, the sergeant later checked the footage from the cockpit camera and found out the truth,

.

The police appealed to the court, saying that the two only talked about "Pokémon Go".

But the evidence spoke against her, so that her dismissal was judged to be final.