Courts back firing of two LA cops who ignored robbery to discuss Pokemon GO

Back in 2017, LAPD officers Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell were sitting in their patrol car when the urgent voice of the dispatcher crackled over their radio. A robbery was in progress at a Macy's near where the officers had parked. According to court documents and KABC, the cops failed to respond to radio calls and another officer spotted their vehicle driving away from a location near the robbery.

The two officers were fired after a hearing determined that Lozano and Mitchell's actions "violated the trust of the public" and were "unprofessional and embarrassing." Thanks to a surveillance system in the patrol car, the LAPD discovered that the cops had said "screw it" about the robbery at Macy's and went on to discuss how to capture the Pokemon called Snorlax in the AR game Pokemon GO.

Lawyers for the two fired policemen tried to argue that the conversations they had in the patrol car were private and should be dismissed, but both the lower court and appeals court disagreed. Released in 2016 and available from both the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store, Pokemon GO continues to generate revenue for developer Niantic. The game, which allows users to search their surroundings for Pokemon that they can "capture," has collected over $5 billion in lifetime revenue.

As of last count, the game had been installed over 1 billion times as the Pokemon franchise refuses to die. Every year a number of new Pokemon fans are added while older fans refuse to stop collecting cards, playing games, and buying merchandise. During the first half of last year, the title took in $642 million in revenue, a 34% hike over the same period the previous year. And now that the game can be played using a higher refresh rate, users will have a more enjoyable experience playing Pokemon GO.

You might remember that when the game was first released in 2016, groups of players would be found on most summer nights with their phones out in front of them scanning parking lots, restaurants, sidewalks, and other locations hoping that a rare Pokemon would make an appearance. For many, the game has been an addiction and the actions of the two former cops reveal that the Pokemon motto, "Gotta Catch 'Em All" became more important than "Got To Catch Those Criminals."

Pokemon GO was tailor made for AR which uses a real life background with a layer of digital content on top. The game uses the front or back camera system of the player's smartphone to look for Pokemon in the area. If you have yet to try the game, it can be installed for your iPhone or Android handset from the App Store or Google Play Store respectively.

As any Pokemon fan knows, collecting the pocket monsters is just part of the game. Pokemon GO allows users to battle using each Pokemon's special fighting moves. This feature was not part of the initial Pokemon GO release and was added in December 2018. At the time, trainer vs. trainer battles were limited to nearby players with a level of 10 or higher.

Trainers who have a level 10 ranking were also allowed to participate in another major part of the Pokemon experience: trading Pokemon. Niantic eventually added this capability and released a video to show users how swapping Pokemon can be done.

Since the game requires players to walk around searching for wild Pokemon, the Business of Apps website posted data estimating that in the game's first year, Pokemon GO players had walked 8.7 million km in aggregate. That would be enough to get to the end of the solar system. And the latest data shows that as of 2019, that distance has increased to 23 billion km.