Indiana Sex Offender Caught Playing ‘Pokemon GO’ With A Teenager — Right Outside The Courthouse

An Indiana sex offender was spotted by sheriff’s deputies playing Pokemon GO with a teenager on the courthouse lawn of the very courthouse where, a few years ago, he was found guilty of committing crimes against children, the New York Daily News is reporting.

In an almost colossal example of failure to think things through, Randy Zuick, 42, was picked up on the lawn of the Hancock County Courthouse in Greenfield, Indiana, with a 16-year-old boy. An officer spotted Zuick, who, as a sex offender, is forbidden from having contact with children under the age of 18. He ran inside to get backup, and Zuick was arrested on the spot for probation violation.

Zuick pleaded guilty in April to fondling a young girl that his girlfriend was babysitting, a felony. He was sentenced to probation as well as having to register as a sex offender. Wayne Addison, the chief probation officer in Hancock County, told WISH (Indianapolis) that Zuick was forbidden from having any contact with children under the age of 18, either in person or electronically. Further, he was banned from using social media at all.

So what does a courthouse have to do with Pokemon GO? The hugely popular mobile game requires players to travel about in the real world, trying to “catch” mythical characters called Pokemon (a portmanteau of “pocket monsters”), based on their GPS coordinates (for a more in-depth, yet still accessible, explanation of Pokemon GO, check out this article on Slate). The characters and other elements associated with the game are generally found in public places: museums, parks, war memorials, places of worship, and, in this case, courthouses.

If you think this Pokemon GO craze has gotten out of hand, well, you may be right, but that’s a discussion for another article. But one thing is clear: The game has been turning up in the news quite a bit these past few days, often due to what players have found — besides Pokemon characters, that is — while playing the game.

Earlier this week in Wyoming, for example, a woman playing Pokemon GO found a dead body floating in a river, according to USA Today.

“I woke up this morning, and I wanted to go get a water Pokemon, so I just got up and went for my little walk, a walk to catch Pokemon.”

Authorities say the body, likely belonging to a drowning victim, showed no signs of foul play and are treating the person’s death as an accident.

When Pokemon GO players aren’t finding dead bodies, they’re injuring and maiming themselves. Just this week, according to the Los Angeles Times, two men playing the game weren’t looking where they were going, and fell 75 to 100 feet off of a cliff. Fortunately, both men suffered only moderate injuries.

And when they’re not finding dead bodies or injuring and maiming themselves, Pokemon GO players are turning up in places where they’re not welcome. Remember that sentence from a few paragraphs ago about game elements being found in museums? Well, once such museum is the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. Officials at the museum made it quite clear, according to USA Today, that people playing a lighthearted mobile game aren’t welcome in a place of somber remembrance. The Holocaust Museum is joined by Arlington National Cemetery, Auschwitz, and other historical sites, whose purposes don’t necessarily lend itself to fun and games, in asking Pokemon GO players to stay away.

As of this writing, the Indiana sex offender who was caught playing Pokemon GO with a teenager remains in jail. He was scheduled to appear in court today.

[Image via bikeriderlondon/Shutterstock]