Since its release, Pokémon GO has been the game that finally brought augmented reality to the mainstream. Millions of people left their couches to go meander the neighborhood in search of virtual monsters that you could only see if you were staring at your phone. It created a worldwide sensation as throngs of young and old alike took to the streets like a zombie horde, all moaning the same refrain: “gotta catch ‘em all.”

And while the benefits of Pokémon GO are obvious (more exercise and getting some fresh air are things both parents and doctors have been screaming for years) it hasn’t all been sunshine and Pidgeys for all would-be Pokémon trainers.

The incredible allure of catching them all can cause a unique sort of tunnel-vision, to the point where players are totally unaware of what’s happening around them. That’s dangerous enough on its own, but for the brief time when players were able to drive their cars and still play the game, it was borderline homicidal.

Lucky for everyone, Niantic would eventually patch the game to prevent trainers from being able to do anything after exceeding a certain speed, but the core problem of Pokémon GO remained: when you take the single-minded focus of a gamer and make them wander around outside it can lead to some terrible outcomes.

Sometimes they even broke the law. Here are 15 shocking ways people ignored the law while playing Pokémon GO.

15 Two Canadian Teens Wander Across The US Border

Montana Border
via Flickr
Montana Border

We begin our journey at the longest undefended border in the world. But just because it’s undefended doesn’t mean it’s totally unmonitored.

Two kids from Coutts, Alberta, Canada found that out the hard way. While playing Pokémon GO and desperately trying to catch yet another Drowzee, the pair didn’t even notice when they crossed the border into Montana.

Admittedly, it’s not like there’s a fence for them to jump - it’s just a cleared area of the forest that you can easily miss if you don’t look from side to side and notice that clearing goes on for miles in either direction. Anyway, Border Patrol caught up with them shortly after the crossing and released the two teens to their mothers shortly thereafter.

14 French Man Invades Indonesian Military Base For Psyduck

Indonesia military Base
via ABC.net
Indonesia military Base

As I’m sure we’ll learn over the course of this list, the human brain can easily miss things when it’s laser-focused on a certain task. For one French tourist in Indonesia, he was so focused on catching that Psyduck that he didn’t notice the barbed wire fences and nice men with machine guns all around him.

Roman Pierre was playing Pokémon GO in the port city of Cirebon when he suddenly found himself held at gunpoint. He couldn’t figure out what had happened until he actually looked up and noticed where he was - smack inside an Indonesian naval base.

Fortunately for Pierre, they let him go after realizing it was all a game, but he never caught that Psyduck.

13 Florida Man Stays In Park To Play Pokémon After Hours, Gets Tased

Don't Tase Me Bro!
via tampabay.com
Don't Tase Me Bro!

In Tampa Florida, residents around Ballast Point Park were getting a little annoyed at the mobs of trainers that Pokémon GO had brought to their quiet suburb. It was bad enough they had to fight newcomers for limited parking, but often they’d stay after closing to keep catching Pokémon.

Eventually, they’d had enough and called the cops. Most trainers left with a warning, but one player refused to leave. David T. Mastrototaro-Baermude had a problem with “the man,” and instead of peacefully leaving the park he decided to keep playing and shout epithets at the fuzz. So they tased him.

The official charge was trespassing and resisting an arrest, but I’d like to think it was a lack of gym badges to command a very high-level police officer.

12 Two Men Get Into Fisticuffs Over Pokémon GO In Singapore

Singapore Roads
via comfort-transportation.com
Singapore Roads

If you thought grown men wouldn’t come to blows over a game like Pokémon think again.

Two men in Singapore, aged 28 and 33, were arrested after getting into a fistfight in the middle of the street. Apparently, one of them was playing Pokémon GO and didn’t notice when his pursuit of Pokémon took him into the road, causing the other man to stop. Not content to simply honk his horn in anger, he actually got out of his car to give the trainer a piece of his mind.

It all ended in blood, tears, and the cops being called to arrest the two brawlers. The police would later release a statement saying, "If you must 'catch 'em all,' please do not endanger your life or personal safety, or cause inconvenience to those around you."

11 Wanted Felon Walks Into Michigan Police Station In Search Of Pokémon

Michigan
via theoaklandpress.com
Michigan

There’s nothing illegal about playing Pokémon GO near a police station - some officers have even embraced the game as a means of community outreach. But if you’ve got a warrant out for your arrest maybe it's a better idea to lay low rather than try to catch Pokémon inside a precinct?

William Wilcox was determinedly tracking down Pokémon when he spotted one inside the Milford police station. The cop working the desk recognized him from a wanted poster, got up, and arrested him.

He didn’t seem all that upset about being arrested, though. “I think he was more upset that he had to stop playing the game,” noted officer Lindberg. Now that’s a dedicated trainer.

10 Washington Woman Learns That Pokémon GO And Alcohol Don’t Mix

Woman Drunk
via The Young Turks on YouTube
Woman Drunk

If there’s one thing that I want you to take away from this article it's that you shouldn’t drink and drive. You should also not drink, drive, and play Pokémon GO.

And you should definitely not drink, drive, and play Pokémon GO when you’re under 21. And driving on a suspended license. Oh, and your boyfriend has 4 outstanding arrest warrants.

Witnesses near a motel saw a car swerving in and out of the parking lot that was being driven by a woman clearly drinking and playing on her phone. Police eventually caught up with her at a nearby park and arrested both her and her boyfriend for doing many, many illegal things.

9 Pokémon GO Player Crashes Car Into School In Melbourne Australia

Driving-and-Pokemon
via aolcdn.com.
Driving-and-Pokemon

Honestly, you shouldn’t do anything at the same time as driving, but you should definitely never drive while playing Pokémon GO.

A man in Melbourne lost control of his car while driving through a roundabout and trying to spin a Pokéstop. He smashed through a fence and crashed into a school building. Lucky for everyone it was almost 7 in the evening and teachers and students had gone home for the day.

Of course, the police had to issue a statement. “Any Pokeballs, eggs, or potions the driver may have had remaining only attracted police,” said Victoria Police spokeswoman Julie-Anne Newman, showing an unfortunate lack of Pokémon GO knowledge - only lures attract things in GO.

8 Young Russian YouTuber Convicted For Playing Pokémon GO In Church

Russian Church
via The Verge
Russian Church

An interesting thing happened with Pokémon GO’s release: after years of declining attendance, people were falling over themselves to go back to church. But it wasn’t because a generation of young people had all caught religion. No, it was because they all wanted to catch PokémonDue to some quirk in the design process, churches ended up being a very common place to find Pokéstops, and spending an hour at church every Sunday was a perfect opportunity to pop a lure and catch as many Pokémon as God would allow.

Ruslan Sokolovsky decided to play in church "because, why not?," which ended up offending Russia's deeply conservative authorities. He was handed a 3.5 year suspended sentence for “disrespect to society” and intent “to offend religious sentiments.”

This is why we have separation of church and state.

7 Girl On A Pokéwalk In Pittsburgh Gets Hit By Car

Pittsburgh Girl
via WTAE-TV Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh Girl

I know that pedestrians always have right of way, but that doesn’t mean those same pedestrians should walk across a street with their heads buried in a phone app.

A girl in Pittsburgh was struck by a car after she crossed a 4 lane highway to catch a Pikachu. Luckily, the car saw her in time to break, and she managed to walk away with only minor injuries.

Her mom blames the game for the accident, saying that she wouldn’t have tried to cross the road at all if it wasn’t for Pokémon GO. "When she called and said she got hit by a car, I blamed the game because she would not have been out of the house. My daughter is a hermit," the mom said.

6 Guy In Baltimore Crashes Into The Cops Playing Pokémon GO

Pokemon Go Sideswipe
via baltimoresun.com
Pokemon Go Sideswipe

Distracted driving is a real thing, and nothing is more distracting than trying to play a video game and drive at the same time.

One Baltimore resident found that out in the worst way possible after he crashed into a parked police car on a night-time Pokémon excursion. He apparently was trying to catch a Pokémon and swerved a little too far to the right, crashing into a line of parked cars (the first of which was the cop car).

A policeman standing on the sidewalk caught the whole thing on his body-cam. The young driver is a little shook up, but none the worse for wear. “This is what I get for playing this dumb @#$ game,” he says.

5 Infantrymen Tweets Pic Of His Pokemon Find, Gives Away Position To The Enemy

Marine Pokemon
via independent.co.uk
Marine Pokemon

So far there’s been a lot of distracted driving, trespassing, and a little bit of armed robbery, but treason is probably the biggest charge to hit this list yet.

A US Marine was stationed in Dahuk, Iraq, and decided to pass the hours of boredom that comes from guard duty with a little Pokémon GO. Apparently, he’d always been a Pokémon fan, and since all his friends back home were playing, he just had to get in on the action.

Which would have been fine (well, not fine, but not illegal) except he decided to post his Squirtle catch on Facebook and then say “Daesh, come challenge me to a Pokemon battle.” It’s technically possible to get his location from the image, leading to some officers up the chain having some concern about giving info to the enemy. The post was taken down before any formal charges were laid.

4 Armed Robbers Use Lures To Attract Pokémon GO Victims

Pokemon Go Robbery
via The Warp Zone on YouTube
Pokemon Go Robbery

Lures can be used to attract Pokémon in Pokémon GO, but they can also be used to attract players.

Four suspects were arrested in Missouri for the armed robbery of unsuspecting Pokémon trainers. The inventive thieves used Pokémon GO lures to attract players to dark alleys and other inconspicuous places and rob them at gunpoint. 11 players between the ages of 16 to 18 were mugged before police finally caught the thieves.

Unfortunately, the criminal masterminds did not call themselves Team Rocket nor was their leader named Giovanni - an unforgivable oversight. Luckily, a trainer’s collection is stored online in Pokémon GO, so the players were only out the cost of a new phone. And their wallets.

3 Even Pokémon GO Makers Broke The Law

Pokemon Go Email
via techworm.net
Pokemon Go Email

There are laws in the United States (and Canada) that say a company is only allowed to ask for your personal information if they need it, and the user has to agree to whatever info they disclose. That’s why most apps on your phone request access to your phone’s systems after you install them.

In earlier versions of Pokémon GO, Niantic requested access to your Gmail account if you were an iPhone user, but due to a coding error got way more than just your email address.

They could access your entire email account and history. Security experts agreed this was a huge breach of privacy and that no game, no matter how awesome, should need that kind of access.

2 Trespassing Pokémon GO Players Fall Down Cliff

San Diego Cliffs
via itsjustjustin.com
San Diego Cliffs

The shocking thing about this story really isn’t the trespassing or the fact they were playing Pokémon GO but was the fact that both players fell down the same cliff when one clearly had enough time to listen to the other’s screams first.

Two young men in San Diego decided to play Pokémon near the seaside cliffs of E Street and were met with the obstacle of a chained fence with a sign saying ‘dangerously unstable cliffs.’ Naturally, the two decided to hop the fence and continue their game.

Both men were later taken to Scripps La Jolla Hospital with non-life threatening injuries. There’s no word if the Meowth they were chasing was caught or not.

1 Teacher Playing Pokémon GO Hits Pedestrians While Driving

Teacher Hits Pedestrians
via aol.com
Teacher Hits Pedestrians

We tend to hold teachers up to a higher standard than we do most of us simply because they’re the ones setting an example for our children to follow. One Florida teacher didn’t do a very good job of that.

A middle school teacher in Dunedin was playing Pokémon while driving when he struck two pedestrians. Instead of getting out to help, he drove away from the scene. Witnesses called the cops, who arrested him later on that day.

In addition to having his license revoked and being charged with fleeing the scene of an accident, he lost his job as a teacher. Which is probably for the best, all things considered.