“Pokémon Go” players now have something other than rare Pokémon to watch out for.
This week, the University of Minnesota Police Department responded to two incidents of phone theft involving individuals playing the game.
According to police incident reports, one of the thefts occurred at 222 Pleasant St. SE on Monday night. The second occurred late Tuesday night at 207 Pleasant St. SE.
Recent University of Minnesota Graduate Huimin Gu was the victim of Monday night’s theft. She was talking with her friend near Coffman Memorial Union, when a man came up and took her phone from her hand, she said.
Gu said they tried to chase him down, but there was a car waiting for the suspect.
“He just hopped into the passenger seat, and they took off,” she said.
Before the incident happened, Gu said she was playing Pokémon Go with her friend, which is why she had her phone in her hand.
She thinks Pokémon Go may have contributed to the theft, since she normally wouldn’t have had her device exposed.
“If you want to play that game at all, I … think that it would [be] better to do that in a group,” she said.