Police Officers Fired For Playing Pokemon Go While On Duty

Two LAPD officers have been fired for playing the popular mobile sensation Pokemon Go while on duty and ignored an emergency call.

As reported by Vice, court documents from 2017 were recently released detailing the dismissal of the two police officers in question. Pokemon Go is a fantastic social, mobile game, but there’s a time and place for the Niantic title. Especially when you’re an on-duty officer.

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So, what happened exactly?

According to the court documents, the two LAPD officers were not only playing Pokemon Go on-duty, but they also ignored calls for back-up for a nearby robbery-in-progress. It has also been reported that the police officers appealed the decision of dismissal, but that motion was denied.

When appealing the decision, the two police officers claimed that they did not hear the call from fellow officers over the radio as they were in a loud area. However, dashcam footage proved that they ignored the call. The dashcam footage even recorded the officers moving to different areas in the car to catch Pokemon.

pokemon go snorlax
Credit: The Pokemon Company

To add further context to the story (not that it’s acceptable), but rather than responding to calls of fellow police officers to the robbery-in-progress, the officers decided to instead hunt down a Snorlax and Togetic.

A released court document went into further detail regarding the Pokemon hunting LAPD officers.

pokemon go court document
Credit: Court Doc via Vice

So, if there’s a lesson learned today, if you’re at work, especially as an emergency responder, stop playing Pokemon Go, put down the phone and answer the call.

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Featured Image Credit: The Pokemon Company