Los Angeles officers fired for playing Pokémon Go instead of stopping a robbery

Two Los Angeles police officers were fired for playing Pokémon Go instead of responding to a robbery call, according to court documents published on Friday.

In April 2017, officers Luis Lozano and Eric Mitchell received a radio call reporting a robbery in progress with “multiple subjects” at a Macy’s in southwest LA. However, they did not respond to the call and drove away.

After an investigation, the car’s camera system revealed that the two officers finished catching a Snorlax before driving off to the crime scene. Once at the location, the two officers also caught Togetic, another Pokémon.

“After Mitchell apparently caught the Snorlax— exclaiming, ‘Got ‘em’—petitioners agreed to ‘[g]o get the Togetic’ and drove off,” reported the court documents.

The LAPD officers were fired for “willfully abdicating their duty to assist a commanding officer’s response to a robbery in progress and playing a Pokémon mobile game while on duty.”

Lozano and Mitchell denied playing a video game while on duty. They claimed that there were only “having a conversation about Pokémon Go.”

Both officers appealed their dismissal. Lozano and Mitchell claimed that the recording should not have been used in their disciplinary proceeding and that it violated their privacy. The court upheld their dismissal.

Pokémon Go is an augmented reality mobile phone game in which users try to catch Pokémon and battle other Pokémon trainers.