The Los Angeles Police Department has released a video showing two on-duty officers talking about the mobile game Pokémon Go while they ignored a robbery call, KTLA reported.
Video of the 2017 incident was released on Oct. 5 and shows former LAPD officers Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell discussing strategy for the game while ignoring a report of several people who were in the process of robbing a store at a nearby mall.
From KTLA:
A police captain who arrived at the scene saw their patrol car parked nearby and wondered why the officers didn’t respond and said he had to respond to the call.
The officers claimed that they hadn’t heard the radio request for backup, but video footage from inside the patrol car captures the moment when Lozano could be heard saying, “Ah, screw it,” in reference to the request, according to the court filings.
In 2018, LAPD fired the two veteran officers who were on the force for 17 and seven years, respectively, were fired, the Times reported. A police board of rights unanimously ruled that the two officers committed misconduct that was “unprofessional and embarrassing” and violated the public’s trust, the Associated Press reported.
Watch the video below:
Two LAPD officers were fired in 2018 for failing to backup a colleague on a robbery call because they were playing Pokemon Go and for lying about it after the fact.
Yesterday, the LAPD released the dash cam video that reveals their gaming.https://t.co/bWQMTH4V1N pic.twitter.com/gOgTCqDo7s
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) October 7, 2023
Read the full report here.
