LAPD releases video of officers who ignored robbery to play Pokémon Go | Hacker News Reader

LAPD releases video of officers who ignored robbery to play Pokémon Go

latimes.com

98 pointssimjue51 comments

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The overlap between Pokemon Go and the job of a police officer are nearly a circle, "gotta catch 'em all".

Technically, US police solve less than half of all violent crime and less than 25% percent of all property crime.

So more like “gotta catch a few of ‘em”.

gotta catch 'em all doesn't imply gonna catch 'em all

Also the fun isn't in catching 'em - it's in pitting 'em against each other and watching 'em fight it out.

How is that a kids TV show again?

The working title Children running Monster Cage Fights didn't test well in early screenings.

In LA county only 8% of hit and runs are ever solved too.

They confiscate nearly all of the cash and valuables they are aware of that might be plausibly asserted to be the results of criminal activities. Above 99%.

They have priorities. Those priorities just aren't you or your problems.

Ah Pokemon Go. I haven’t played it in years. I still think the summer of 2016….the summer of Pokemon Go…that was the last sane summer. Ever since that summer ended it feels like the world went crazy. Anyone else feel this way?

That summer was awful, please consider that you might simply be getting old.

I was born in '75, and people have been saying things like that for as long as I can remember. It seems likely to me that a substantial number of people will always feel that way. I don't know if it's more true now. I think the social implications of modern technology are still becoming apparent, even as we continue to develop and expand that tech. That could be a contributing factor, although maybe when we talk about craziness we're talking about different things, depending on which bubble we live on.

If you ask me, it all went to shit when Metallica sued Napster.

“That was the day the music died”, but for gen-X.

Older Gen Y, but pretty much.

I see people who work jobs like security (sitting around all day in other words) still play this game religiously

Yeah, but it generally will simply get more chaotic. What you're experiencing is the entropy generated from rapid change. The pace of change, eg, acceleration, is only going to increase as time goes on.

YOU will get older. At some point you will lose the ability to keep pace with more and more of the things you track. Keep a few essential interests, and cut yourself a slice of something peaceful to save for when it's time to take a step back.

> He also said the officers were improperly interviewed without legal or labor representation present.

This counts as irony, right?

And they wonder why a lot of people want to pay them less

Oh, come now. They were the first to quiet quit. It started over a decade ago and they can't really be bothered to even respond to non-violent/sex crimes now. It's such a hassle.

https://www.police1.com/police-jobs-and-careers/articles/15-...

Doesn't say but it sounds like they were using an autocatcher. In that case you are not "playing" as that is generally understood, you are just wearing a bracelet that does everything without you being involved at all.

Which, frankly, is a much better way to play the game.

Without one it’s a huge timesink and you become one of those annoying people that wanders around staring at their phone getting in people’s way.

What's the point of 'playing' a game if a bot does it for you?

You still have to walk around to find the Pokemon

It's primarily a collection game. The 'action' of trowing the balls and spinning the thingies for balls doesn't amount to much.

So in a sense, you can compare it to a collector of virtual trading cards, but instead of buying card packs you get them from moving around.

They were playing as far as I can tell:

“After Mitchell apparently caught the Snorlax—exclaiming, ‘Got ‘em’—petitioners agreed to ‘go get the Togetic’ and drove off.” Mitchell said that he “buried” the Togetic and used an Ultra Ball on it, and was “still trying to catch it” after quite some time.

“Holy crap, man. This thing is fighting the crap out of me,” Mitchell said, according to court records. “Holy crap. Finally …. the guys are going to be so jealous.”

Berried*

This is your threadly reminder that courts have repeatedly upheld that police have no legal responsibility for your safety or to protect you from violent criminals. You are responsible for your own safety.

Sources for the US:

Castle Rock v Gonzales

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_of_Castle_Rock_v._Gonza...

Warren v District of Columbia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columb...

DeShaney v Winnebago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeShaney_v._Winnebago_County

Simultaneously, in the US there is a well-established recognition of the right to self-defense. However, this is tempered by a minority of states imposing a duty to retreat. Seven states also impose a duty to comply with a criminal’s “negative demands” and one with both positive and negative criminal demands(!).

https://reason.com/volokh/2022/01/26/the-right-to-defy-crimi...

Some countries do not recognize the right to self defense and have no duty to protect, and there are all flavors in between, so YMMV depending on the country you live in or are visiting.

They're not in trouble for that. They're in trouble for not obeying the boss's orders.

Article title is a bit misleading. They were discussing the game but they weren't both playing, and they didn't "ignore robbery to play pokemon go". There was clearly a history between the officer(s) and the person requesting backup which led to them deciding to ignore the call.

That said, it certainly doesn't help their case that they were playing a game instead of working.

They did ignore the robbery to play pokemon go. The transcripts from the court filings are pretty clear on that imo. They didn’t stop at discussion, they actually went out and caught two pokemon.

at least those pokemon won’t immediately be released am i right

No but they might inexplicably take falling damage whilst in custody.

What about the "QI potion", or is that no longer a thing?

If you are in danger or your child is being murdered in the next room, the police will be playing with their cell phones. Know how to defend yourself and have the tools to do so, nobody is coming to save you.

I had a drunk driver hit my parked car. LAPD took him off to the side and let him know he could refuse a breathalyzer. Thanks LAPD... We need police reform, abolish qualified immunity.

You're mad that the police followed the law?

I'm mad that a drunk driver crashed into my parked car, which caused me to crash into another car which caused that car to crash into another car, costing well over 50K in property damages and instead of arresting him or investigating his drunk driving, they gave him legal advice.

The fire department that arrived was able to deem him as intoxicated immediately, he also had an open container in the car LAPD refused to acknowledge. The cherry on top is when he told my insurance company I pulled out in front of him, which is insurance fraud. Thankfully that was that lie that broke the camel's back, I was able to prove I wasn't in the car because my airbag never deployed and the fact this happened at 3AM in the morning.

So yeah, I'm mad that LAPD skirts their responsibility and instead of taking care of me the victim in this case, they went out of their way to ensure that a drunk driver who could have easily killed someone, was able to walk away from everything with zero consequences outside of his insurance fraud.

A police officer has to inform you of your miranda right which includes the right to remain silent, which covers a Breathalyzer test. The officer was following the law.

He might be slightly upset that, being the victim of a crime of recklessness, LAPD took it upon themselves to be free defense attorneys for someone who would likely go on to commit manslaughter.

All so they could fuck with him and make it more difficult to claim damages with his insurance, costing him anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars in an economy where many or even most live paycheck to paycheck.

Snorlax is not mythical. Not real Pokémon fans.

It’s easy to see why they would come to that conclusion, since snorlax was a major obstacle in Pokémon red/blue

It was a hard fight according to the transcripts in the court records

Pokemon Go is the new donuts?

Let this be a reminder for us all to Pokemon GO to the polls to vote for Police reform

That's not going to be on my ballot anytime soon

Just out of curiosity, and it may sound random, but does &T mean anything to you?

Haha yeah. I posted on totse from 2003 til the end and then moved to zoklet until that shut down too.

Let this be a reminder that our avenues for change in the world are artificially limited. Due to that, we must not wait for some allowed moment to ask for change, but demand it every day.

> Due to that, we must not wait for some allowed moment to ask for change, but demand it every day.

Sadly we're mostly wage slaves in the US and so while we might like to spend all day every day standing outside of the police department shouting or marching in protest we'd quickly lose our jobs, our homes, and perhaps die from the lack of employer provided insurance that makes the medications we need to survive barely affordable.

The system is rigged very well to prevent meaningful sustained protest by keeping us chained to our work for 40+ hours a week, keeping us eating and surrounded by poison to make us sick, and by only giving most people enough money to get by paycheck to paycheck. We're allowed to accumulate debt to keep ourselves entertained though so that when we're too tired to protest from overwork we can still sit in front of large TV screens while we stare at our tiny phones designed to keep us distracted and disconnected from the people around us.

Our best bet is to wait for those brief moments when we're allowed to cast a vote for someone else who doesn't represent our interests.

Or you know, organize and spread class consciousness and ultimately revolt

there are enough homeless in LA that we could probably pay them to act as proxy protestors (https://www.proxyprotest.com/) while we sit at our desks making money for the boss.

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