LA police officers reportedly ignored an emergency call to play Pokemon GO instead

Pokemon GO took the world by storm in 2016, and countless individuals dove into Niantic's landmark title to roam their neighborhoods and catch and battle Pocket Monsters. However, it appears that some players took the game a bit too seriously and neglected their real-world obligations, an accusation held against Officers Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell of the Los Angeles Police Department.

In 2018, both officers were fired after a disciplinary panel concluded that they were playing Pokemon GO and ignoring a backup call for a pending robbery in 2017. Dashcam footage has just been released surrounding the incident following a Freedom of Information Act request.

The video shows both officers allegedly discussing the gameplay of Niantic's mobile title during a dispatch call to the scene of a suspected robbery.

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Camera footage released surrounding two LAPD officers fired for allegedly playing Pokemon GO on the job

Based on reports by ABC7 News and The Los Angeles Times, the newly-surfaced dashcam footage shows Officers Lozano and Mitchell out on patrol in the Crenshaw area in April 2017. The two officers received a call for assistance at the Crenshaw Mall due to a suspected robbery, while being parked less than 200 yards away, according to the department.

The two discuss aspects of Pokemon GO, including Potions, Poke Balls, and catching Pokemon. According to court documents and the LAPD, Officers Lozano and Mitchell continued on without reporting to the scene.

The LAPD officers discuss Pokemon GO in newly-released dashcam footage (Image via Los Angeles Police Department)

After this incident and a review by a board within the LAPD, Officers Lozano and Mitchell were fired for conduct that ran counter to department policy, as well as lying to their supervisors and internal investigators about playing the game during the robbery call. The two officers filed to appeal their firing, but the Californian Court of Appeals ruled that their termination was justified.

Their legal representation has claimed that the LAPD treated the two employees unfairly, stating that using the dashcam footage to corroborate the justification for firing them violated the officers' privacy. Moreover, their defense attorney, Greg Yacoubian, has remarked that the two officers were interviewed without labor representation present.

The Pokemon Snorlax took center stage in this LAPD debacle (Image via Niantic)

The city of Los Angeles made the full three-hour dashcam footage available via its online records archive, wherein both officers can be heard discussing catching the creatures Snorlax and Togetic during a Pokemon GO event as they drive from one spawning location to another.

Both officers pleaded guilty during disciplinary hearings that they had neglected to answer the call for backup but continued to deny that they were playing Pokemon GO on duty. Regardless, the disciplinary panel ruled against them unanimously based on 16 exhibits' worth of evidence from the dashcam recordings.

The game displays warnings in-game to remind players not to be distracted (Image via Niantic)

Court records indicate the panel's decision determined that Officers Lozano and Mitchell had "violated the trust of the public" and called their behavior "unprofessional" for the department.