Pokemon GO, a recently launched augmented-reality based game has been enjoying an unprecedented level of popularity and craze around the world. People of all ages are playing this game, and it has quickly turned into a global sensation, almost doubling the market value of Nintendo since it launched. The game doesn’t come without its fair share of mishaps and strange happenings though, as reported across the world. A series of crimes, car accidents, and other events have been taking place due to the players being lost in the Pokemon GO world, and not paying attention to their surroundings. The latest in a series of events is the arrest of a woman who was allegedly shooting Pokemon GO players with a pellet gun.
A Canadian woman has been detained by the police as she was shooting players from the rooftop of her apartment, as per the local report. This incident happened near Newmarket’s Main Street South and Water Street of Toronto. The woman is a 29-year old resident of Water Street and is named Patricia Champagne. According to the local police, they received a call at 10:30 PM about an unidentified person shooting at players and rushed to the place with about 15 York Regional Police cars, SWAT teams, and dogs on the spot to prevent carnage. But the woman was arrested quickly without any struggle and the pellet gun was seized. As per the police report, only four pellets were fired, and no one was hit or seriously injured. The place has an augmented reality ‘gym’ in the Pokemon GO world, and has been recently seeing a lot more visitors than normal, almost crossing a hundred every day.
The woman arrested has been charged with one count of assaulting with a weapon, and another for possession of dangerous weapons. Each of the two charges can imply a jail term of up to ten years. According to people living near her, she has always been a nice person and would never do a thing as shooting pellets for a malicious reason. It could be the case that she had too much to drink and had the misguided idea to try and use distracted Pokemon GO players for target practice with her pellets. There is also no evidence to suggest that the woman is mentally unstable causing this sort of an incident to happen.
The new game developed by Niantic is quite engaging, and players are often to be too focused on the game. York regional police added that they had received reports about a number of players trespassing private property while trying to catch a Pokemon. They go on to mention that although the game isn’t illegal, the action of the player crosses legal boundaries often. Recently, a duo had inadvertently crossed the US-Canada border without permission while playing the game.