Officers Report Man Who Shot Pokemon Go Players, Mistaking Them For Thieves

Published: 26 July 2016Updated: 27 September 2016

pikachuSlowly but surely, the reality that is dawning on the observant is that Pokemon Go and American gun laws form a really menacing combination.

Will our lives ever be the same? Pokemon Go is showing no signs of slowing down and is now installed on more than 11 percent of Android phones.

Consider this. Pokemon Go has not been even released outside USA, Australia, New Zealand and a handful of other regions.

Recently, Niantic Labs added 26 more regions and as a result, the lab’s servers crashed badly.

That is how much people want to play this game. Pokemon Go has made people into addicts. But maybe, this time, being an addict is a desirable attribute.

But even with that success and popularity, apparently, a man made a massive mistake and shot Pokemon Go players because he suspected they might be up to no good.

Luckily, no one was injured or hurt, but it could have easily been a lot uglier.

The police officer said that the man, who was residing in Florida, erroneously took aim and shot two Pokemon Go players who were just teens.

Ostensibly, the police officers say, the man judged both the teenagers to be some kind of thieves.

Orlando Sentinel reported that the police officers, who themselves aren’t prone to playing Pokemon Go at inappropriate times, have reported that the man was disturbed in the late hours of the night. Around 1:30 AM, he was awoken from his sleep because of a loud sound.

The man, who has made the news, at this time, was in his home that was situated in Palm Coast area.

He immediately looked out of the window and saw a vehicle near his home.

Thinking that something sinister was about to take place, the man took a hold of his handgun and went outside to do some investigation of his own.

Reports say that the man heard one of the teens say, “Did you get anything,” and then went berserk thinking that the teens were talking about the stolen goods from his house.

The police say that the man stood right in front of the car and presumed that the teens had just robbed him of his possessions.

The man raised the handgun in his hand and shouted at the teens to not move.

Flagler County Sheriff Officer Jim Troiano told the reporters that the teen Pokemon Go players didn’t stop and started to drive away giving no consideration to the man who was standing in front of their car.

The man, as a result, took aim of the car after he had moved out of the way of the car and took shots at the moving vehicle.

Officials says that the “handgun” man took shots at the car because he thought that not only the Pokemon Go players driving the car tried to rob him (he didn’t know that the teens were actually Pokemon Go players just trying to hunt down their favorite Pokemon at night) but also tried to run him over with their vehicle.

Luckily, no one was hurt after the whole situation had ended.

The Pokemon Go teenagers who were driving the car were able to get away with getting injured.

Their car, however, wasn’t so fortunate. The car ended up with a flat tire as a result of the shots that were fired by the man who was disturbed from his sleep earlier.

Reports also said that the vehicle had holes in the rear tire, the fender and the cap that covered the hub of the wheel. The holes were judged to be bullet holes.

The investigation has still not ended and police are looking to get further details about the matter.

But if you thought this is all Pokemon Go has to offer you in terms of crazy accidents then you need to spend a bit more time poring over Pokemon Go news on the internet.

Pokemon Go has not only caused a huge shift towards mobile gaming on the side of consumers but has also been able to establish itself as a cultural phenomenon.

Because of the social nature of the game, people are forced to go out of their homes and leave their comforts behind to look for more Pokemon.

Consequently, public places which have been marked as Poke Stop and Poke Gyms have seen massive crowds. More people in a tight space usually mean more trouble.

And Pokemon Go players have not proven to be the exception.

Reports of theft, robbery and dead body discoveries have been popping up all over the internet.

In fact, two players were also able to stop a murder suspect from abducting a child.

Some believe that the game has taken over people’s lives and hence has gone too far in terms of becoming an integral part of their daily routines.

PokemonOne Pokemon Go player quit his job to go an adventure that involved collecting Pokemon Go monsters throughout the country.

The man who took shots at the teenage Pokemon Go players hasn’t been charged for using a weapon on a street with no apparent danger but it is a distressing sign of the havoc Pokemon Go, which is an augmented reality video game, is capable of causing without much effort.

Observers who have sympathized with the man say that the teenagers drove their vehicle straight towards the man and intentional or not, that could be counted as a murder attempt and hence, the man was well within the law to protect himself from harm and guard his property.

The incidence will only become clear after police have done their investigation in full since views coming from the two camps (one with the teenagers and the other with the man who had the gun) differ quite a lot form each other.

For example, in another interview, the Pokemon Go teenagers who were involved in the incident stated that the man didn’t take enough time to correctly judge the situation and started to shoot at them straight after they talked about catching a Pokemon.

The most balanced view, according to some in the social media circle, is that the man should have called the police and should have stayed put in his house which would have been the most sensible thing to do in a situation where there is an uncertainty of whether there are criminals involved in the scene or not.

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