COLUMBUS – Police say a man was robbed, beaten and shot by a group of teens while playing Pokemon GO on the East Side Tuesday night.
READ MORE: In The Columbus Dispatch
All Gregory Wheeler wanted was to catch a few Pokemon. Instead, the North Linden resident caught three bullets in his legs and a foot, prompting Columbus police to warn residents Wednesday to be careful while they play the popular Pokemon Go game across the city.
Wheeler, a 26-year-old graduate student at Ohio State University studying evolutionary biology, and friend Samantha Haub, also 26, were playing Pokemon Go about 9:40 p.m. Tuesday in Linden Park. A teenager on a bike stopped them and asked to borrow one of their phones to call his mother, said police spokesman Sgt. Rich Weiner.
But the teen took Haub’s phone and pedaled off, said Wheeler, who gave chase and asked a group of nearby teens to help stop the bicycle.
Instead, the dozen teens surrounded Haub and Wheeler, hitting him in the back of the head and kicking both of them. They fell to the ground.
When Wheeler got up to run away, some of the teens began to shout for someone to “get the gun,” he said. Then he felt the bullets in each of his thighs and his right foot.
“While I was laying on the ground bleeding, I was thinking that, ‘I’m not even mad, really,’ ” Wheeler said. “I don’t feel like this is a personal thing that happened to me. These are just kids.”
Weiner was less understanding, blaming recent incidents of violent crime by juveniles on a lack of accountability on the part of parents.
“Everybody wants to blame somebody else for the actions of, maybe, their son or daughter or whoever it is. It starts at home, that’s where it needs to be taken care of,” he said.
A 14-year-old boy was arrested nearby at 11:47 p.m. and admitted to the shooting of Wheeler, detectives said.
He was charged with 2 counts of aggravated robbery and one count of felonious assault.
Anyone with additional information about the incident is asked to contact the Columbus Division of Police Robbery Unit at 614-645-4665 or Crime Stoppers at 614-461-TIPS (8477).