Officers accused of playing Pokemon Go instead of responding to robbery lose CA appeal

Two officers with the Los Angeles Police Department were fired in 2017 after they were accused of ignoring a robbery so they could continue playing Pokemon Go.

On Jan. 7, 2022, an appellate court ruled that their firing was justified despite the former officers’ claims that audio and video recordings of them were used unfairly to fire them.

The officers, Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell, were captured on an in-car video system discussing how to catch a Snorlax and struggling to capture the evasive and rare Togetic in the popular game, according to court documents. They could also be heard discussing how they did not want to respond to the ongoing robbery nearby, documents said.

According to a California Superior Court filing from Jan. 7, the two former officers were found guilty on multiple counts of misconduct based on the recordings, which revealed the officers to be “willfully abdicating” their duties.

The Los Angeles Police Department and Mitchell’s and Lozano’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News.

The incident took place on April 15, 2017, when Lozano and Mitchell were working as partners and were supervised by another officer, Sgt. Jose Gomez.

While en route to an incident, another officer, Capt. Darnell Davenport, heard a radio call about a robbery in progress at the Macy’s in Crenshaw, which involved multiple suspects. When Davenport responded to the robbery, he saw another patrol car parked nearby and wondered why the officers inside hadn’t responded to the radio call. He proceeded to respond to the robbery on his own, the filing said.

Inside the car were Lozano and Mitchell. Gomez tried to get them to respond to the scene and asked twice before receiving only a “no” in response, documents said.

Gomez later realized that Lozano and Mitchell had been close by during the robbery and asked them about it. They told him that they hadn’t heard the request for backup over the radio, the appeal said.

Gomez later reviewed recordings from the in-car recording system. He found that the two officers were a short distance from the mall at the time of the robbery and that they had heard the calls for help, documents said.

The two officers could be heard discussing whether to respond, and Lozano could be heard saying, “Ah, screw it” before both officers proceeded to ignore the calls, the filing said

A detective, Tracy McClanahan, conducted a misconduct investigation and concluded that Lozano and Mitchell “willfully” failed to respond to the robbery. She also expressed concerns about the two officers playing “the Pokemon Go game” while on duty, documents said.

The game, launched in 2016, is an augmented reality game in the Pokemon franchise that uses a device’s GPS to “locate, capture, battle and train virtual creatures,” according to evidence submitted at the officers’ board of rights hearing.

Just minutes after Lozano could be heard saying “screw it,” Mitchell could be heard telling Lozano that a Snorlax had “just popped up” nearby. The two officers can then be heard discussing how to navigate their car toward the Snorlax.

For the next 20 minutes, the in-car system recorded the officers discussing different Pokemon and driving to various locations to capture them. On the way to the Snorlax, Mitchell told Lozano that a Togetic popped up, and the two made plans to go catch it after the Snorlax. They can then be heard struggling to catch the Togetic before eventually capturing it, with Mitchell saying that “the guys are going to be so jealous,” documents said.

In 2017, Togetic was one of the most difficult Pokemon to catch in the game, according to Polygon.

McClanahan conducted another round of interviews with the two officers, and they denied playing the game on the job. They told McClanahan that they had only been discussing the game and that they were in a group chat about the game, but McClanahan did not believe they were telling the truth, documents said.

The officers were charged with six counts of on-duty misconduct, including failing to respond to a robbery-in-progress call, playing Pokemon Go while on patrol, and making false statements to McClanahan during the investigation, the filing said.

A representative for Mitchell and Lozano argued that the conversations the two of them had in the car were “private,” as they said they were unaware they were being recorded, the filing said. The department, however, said the recordings captured the officers “engaged in police business,” the filing said.

The board of rights unanimously ruled that the two officers were guilty on all but one of the counts of misconduct leveled against them, documents said. The board also called the officers’ conduct “unprofessional and embarrassing behavior” that “violated the trust of the public” and “reflected poorly” on the department.

The two officers were fired. They attempted to appeal the ruling, but the trial court denied their petition, a decision that was affirmed by an appellate court on Jan. 7, 2022.