Police Mistake Pokémon GO Players for Drug Dealers

Last week’s release of Pokémon GO, the augmented reality mobile game that allows players to capture virtual Pokémon in the real world, has led to a slew of bizarre incidents, from a Wyoming teen stumbling upon a dead body to armed robbers using the game to target victims. However, our favorite story, thus far, comes from a Reddit user who couldn’t sleep and found himself in a park a few blocks from his house, hunting for Pokémon at 3 a.m.

“So I get there and wander around a little checking out the stops and rustling around in the tall grass, then decide to go a few blocks away to see a couple more stops when I hear from the darkness a ‘Yo, my man!'” he explained. “Turning, I see two sketchy looking dudes sitting on a bench in the dark. I must have walked right past them without noticing them. One of them waves, ‘My man, check over by the blue truck over there we got an Onyx earlier.'”

“So I wander over by the truck and sure enough there’s a fucking Onyx there,” he continued. “Awesome. So I end up chatting with the guys for a bit, told ‘em where I got my Evee, they convinced me to join red team when I hit level five so we could ‘lock shit down’ in the neighbourhood. Then the cop shows up.”

According to the Reddit user, “two twentysomething black dudes and a 40-year-old white guy chilling in the park at 3 a.m.” must have looked strange, with the police assuming that they had stumbled upon a drug deal taking place.

“It took a bit of talking to convince the cop we weren’t doing a drug deal, and a bit longer to explain the game,” he said. “Then the cop downloaded the fucking game on his phone and asked us how to get started.”

And honestly, we think if the police “gotta catch ’em all,” they should be chasing down Pokémon, not non-violent drug offenders.

Haven’t jumped on the Pokémon GO bandwagon yet? Get your feet wet with our quiz: Pokémon Move or Marijuana Strain?