In the over three hours’ worth of footage released this week, Lozano, who had been with LAPD for 17 years, and Mitchell, who had been an officer for 7 years, are heard discussing Pokémon GO repeatedly, in one instance parked in one location for roughly 25 minutes playing the mobile game. While before the release of this new footage, the incidents on April 15th were only described in court documents and LAPD records, an internal disciplinary panel unanimously found that the officers’ ignoring the call for backup was a breach of department policy. Lozano and Mitchell were also found to have lied about the incident during the subsequent internal investigation, stating that they were in a local park with members of the community playing loud music and did not hear the radio call.
The officers were ultimately found guilty on multiple counts of misconduct and fired in 2018. The officers’ attorney Greg Yacoubian (himself a former LAPD officer), claims his clients’ right to privacy was violated by the dashcam being inadvertently left recording. The appeal submitted by Yacoubian was struck down before the California Court of Appeal, which concluded that LAPD was justified in the firings.
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