When responding to the call of duty against crime, two Los Angeles police officers chose to go looking for a Pokémon.
On April 15, 2017, recounts The Washington PostLos Angeles Police Department Officers Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell heard a call to help handle a multi-suspect robbery case at a nearby Macy’s department store.
But instead of answering that call to stop a crime in progress, Lozano and Mitchell were on another chase and about to capture their quarry.
“This is bringing out the worst in me,” said one. “Everyone is going to be so jealous,” they also said.
Apparently they had captured their target, but it was not criminals but the character called Snorlax, from the Pokémon Go game.
The officers spent about 20 minutes playing Pokémon Go, which was all the rage at the time and consists of characters from the world of Pokémon virtually “appearing” in public places using cell phones and the contenders having to go out and capture them.
“I have a new Pokemon today,” said one of those officers, the Post recounted.
Unsurprisingly, both officers were fired, as it was reprehensible that they ignored a call to action and skipped their duty by catching Pokémon characters instead of arresting criminal suspects.
The fired officers appealed that decision, which was rejected last Friday in an appeals court. The Post quotes the cops’ attorney, Greg Yacobian, who alleged that the Los Angeles Police Department failed to promptly notify its clients that they were being investigated for misconduct and that video from his patrol car’s camera did not it could be used as evidence because it contained “personal communications.”
But, according to official reports, in reality when the two officers heard a call from a colleague asking for support in the aforementioned robbery case, Lozano said, according to the video from his car camera, “I don’t want to be the one who help” and both officers preferred to go capture the rare and coveted Pokémon Snorlax.
Later, after capturing the Snorlax, Lozano and Mitchell arrived at a 7-Eleven store and met Sergeant José Gómez, who was their supervisor. Gómez asked them, indicates the Post, about the aforementioned robbery at Macy’s but they told him, according to The Verge, who had been in a very noisy area and therefore had not heard the call for support in this regard, which according to what can be seen in the video was a lie, and they replied that they were dealing with another case.
Gómez got suspicious, reviewed the video of Lozano and Mitchell’s patrol and realized everything. The sergeant filed a report of these events which culminated in the dismissal of the two officers.
Lozano and Mitchell tried everything to reverse their dismissal, but the appeals court rejected the arguments of the police officers, who sought to invalidate their dismissal via procedural issues, but did not address the core of the matter: should people who Instead of responding to the call of duty, they dedicate themselves to practicing entertainment?
Officers are now considering whether to go to the California Supreme Court in their bid to reverse his firing. But getting reinstated seems even more difficult than capturing the most fantastic and elusive of all Pokemon.
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