Pokemon, Cellphones and Strange People Walking Around. A Recipe For An Accidental Shooting?

Pokemon, Cellphones and Strange People Walking Around. A Recipe For An Accidental Shooting?

I found myself talking about justified shootings and cell phones the other day with my good friend who is also a cop and it dawned on me. Cell phones can be reasonably mistaken as a handgun in certain situations, hell they even make a handgun looking cellphone case (bad idea), and with this new Pokemon craze going on, it is only a matter of time before someone is going to come into contact with law enforcement because of this.

For those of you that do not know what this new Pokemon game is, it is basically a game where people use their cellphone map, camera and walk around outside to find these Pokemon on their cellphone. Adults and kids play this game and wander all around parks, busy streets and neighborhoods looking for Pokemon day and night.

Now here comes the situation that scares me, someone sees a stranger lurking around their residence at an odd hour of the day, maybe early afternoon or late at night when burglaries or home invasions occur. That person calls 911 reporting someone’s trying to break in or has a handgun. Then law enforcement arrives on heightened alert all because of a mistake. To make matters worse, many people play this using earbuds/headphones, making it hard to hear officer’s orders.

How do we avoid this? No idea, people make false calls regarding handguns or burglaries all the time. Pokemon is something new that citizens, law enforcement and 911 dispatch will probably have to adapt to.

If you do play Pokemon, use some common sense to avoid these situations. Don’t trespass and realize if law enforcement approaches you that they might be on heightened alert regarding a possible firearm or a crime being committed. Hopefully this scenario never happens and is just my imagination.

This is not legal advice.  This does not create an attorney-client relationship.  Always seeks counsel.