LA Police Officers Fired Because of PokemonGO

Officials fired Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell due to “multiple counts of misconduct”.

Gotta Catch Them All – Pokemons, Not Criminals

Back in April 2017, the police officers received a call about a robbery at one of Macy’s department stores.

A commanding officer claims that he saw Lozano and Mitchell in their car, “tucked back in an alley just feet away” from the robbery. According to him, they started “to back up down the alley” and completely ignored the signal.

Initially, the policemen stated that they couldn’t hear the radio. The commanding officer, however, went through the digital in-car video system’s (DICVS) recording. It showed that Lozano and Mitchell did, in fact, hear the signal, but agreed to ignore it.

Then, the officers began discussing the AR game Pokemon GO. They drove to different locations where the creatures appeared, attempting to catch them. The DICVS even caught them bragging about getting new species. 

They were released from duty due to “multiple counts of misconduct.”

Not the Only Ones

Lozano and Mitchell aren’t the first ones Pokemon GO managed to distract from their daily lives.

In the very same 2017, the game contributed to 150,000 car accidents and 250 deaths in America. 

Due to the popularity of this and similar games, the AR and VR market size is forecast to grow 7.7x between 2018 and 2022.