Two Los Angeles police officers have been fired for ignoring a robbery in order to play Pokémon Go

The incident occurred in April 2017, but the data were published on Friday by an appeals court.

Two LAPD officers were fired after they failed to react to a robbery report and drove off to catch a Snorlax in Pokemon Go.

Since they were seeking a rare Pokemon GO spawn, officers from the Los Angeles Police Department reportedly forgot to respond to a nearby crime.

It's been nearly six years since the heyday of Pokemon GO when tales of masses of people looking at their phones and screaming for random Pokemon names were commonplace. However, just because such mobs have completely spread or have been limited to Pokemon GO Fest events doesn't mean there aren't still players out there looking for rare Pokemon. In reality, as two police officers discovered recently, there are some situations and professions where spawn points must take a back place to deal with real-world difficulties.

Court documents made public by the California courts detailed the sequence of events that happened on the night of the incident. According to court papers, two Los Angeles police officers were sacked for ignoring a robbery call in order to try to catch a character in the game Pokémon Go. The policemen, Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell were captured on their DICVS, or dash cameras, discussing the incidents in the issue. When a call to attend to a robbery-in-progress came over the radio, the dashcam captured two officers deliberating whether or not to respond to the incident, then ignoring it. Soon after, one of the policemen mentioned that a Snorlax and a rare spawning Togetic were both on the Pokemon GO Nearby map at the time.

The incident occurred in April 2017, but the data were published on Friday by an appeals court. Vice published the news first. Following an investigation, Lozano and Mitchell were fired, but they appealed. Their dismissal was upheld by the court.

The officers defended themselves by claiming that they were chatting about the game rather than actively playing while on duty. They claimed they didn't hear the call because of loud music from a nearby park. Other reasons were that they were not chasing the Pokemon, but were instead using a Pokemon GO tracker website (which was popular at the time) to locate unusual Pokemon spawning. They also argued that the dash-cam recordings were not intended to capture "private discussions" and therefore could not be used against them. The case was dismissed, and the terminations were upheld by the judge.

The footage from Lozano and Mitchell's vehicle shows the two talking about Pokémon Go, an augmented reality mobile game in which gamers travel to different locations. 

The officers claimed that the tape should not have been utilized in their disciplinary proceedings and that they had been denied the protections provided by the Public Safety Officers' Procedural Bill of Rights Act. The court was not satisfied.

Snorlax is a large, bipedal, dark blue-green Pokémon with a cream-colored face, belly, and feet, according to Bulbapedia.net, a community-sourced Pokémon encyclopedia.

According to Bulbapedia, Togetic is a little flying Pokémon who can feel the goodness in other people.

There's a time and a place for everything, as they say, and catching Pokemon while on the clock is a dangerous endeavor. Playing a game at work is one thing. Ignoring a call to work is one thing; ignoring a call to work in a law enforcement position is quite another, which is why the cops were fired.

Pokemon GO is now available for download on both Android and iOS devices.

Source: Stephen Totilo Twitter.