About a fortnight ago, the Pokemon Go App hit and now the reports are coming in. Pokemon Go robberies, muggings and mayhem have hit the nation hard.

Pokemon Go Robberies, Muggings and Mayhem

So you downloaded the #1 app, you have traveled across your town, searching far and wide for Pikachu. But that hasn’t exactly worked out for all the Pokémon Go users. After luring victims to their location with the new augmented reality game app, suspects have been arrested or are currently being sought as police have responded to a high number of reports of Pokemon Go robberies, mugging and general mayhem that have erupted across the nation.
First a little background. The Pokemon Go app allows you, for a small fee of $5 for 30 minutes, to become a “PokeStop”. This brings game players to your location. That’s fine if you are a coffee shop or ice cream parlor wanting to drive traffic to your store.
It’s not fine when someone is luring you to a secluded location to rob you.
Police around the nation are warning those who play the game or have children who play the game to do so with extreme caution.
Why?
In just two short weeks, it’s happening all over. From Orlando Florida to St Louis to stabbing and robbing in San Antonio to a carjacking in a Northern California park to the University of Maryland Campus to a gunpoint robberies at a park in Baltimore to a man shot and robbed in Columbus Ohio. And that’s not even a start of a list, that’s just the first page of a Google News search.

What do they all have in common? Their head was down, they were playing a game and distracted, unaware of their surroundings.

If any of those folks had Situational Awareness Training, they would likely have their phones, wallets and purses right now. It’s also fairly certain they would not have been stabbed, shot or had their vehicle stolen either.
It also poses a question we never thought of.
Should you get a concealed weapon permit to play a game on your phone? We sincerely hope the answer is no, and that you have the common sense to be aware of your surroundings when playing a game.
But the larger question is that with street and parking lot robberies, carjackings and home invasions on the rise; Are you prepared to protect yourself and your loved ones?
When you say the word “robberies” most people imagine crimes committed against banks (how many bank heists have we seen in movies and TV?), but that is only 2.1% of robberies. Or perhaps you think of late-night retail establishments like gas stations and convenience stores where a gun is used to force the cashier to hand over the cash in the drawer (8.3%). However, most robberies occur on the street and parking lots, directly against a person (44.5%). When someone uses force or fear against you to steal your car, it’s a carjacking (10.2%). When someone robs you in your home (14.3%) it’s a home invasion robbery.
We tell you this so that you know that a bank teller or cashier at 7-11 working the graveyard shift at 3 AM is considerably safer than you are walking to your car at the mall at 3 in the afternoon, or sitting in your home watching Jeopardy.

But definitely keep and eye out playing Pokemon Go.

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