'Pokemon Go' Craze Hits Sacramento Area Parks

The augmented-reality game, "Pokemon Go," allows users to capture pretend creatures in the real world through their phones.

Since the game launched last week players have taken to Sacramento streets, parks, bars, shops and other public places trying to catch and train Pokemon.

This caused some confusion for Fulton-El Camino Park Police Chief Shane Diller.

"About midnight I saw a couple of people walking through a park and they had their phones kind of  in front of their faces and I just pulled up and go out and said ‘hey how you folks doing, you know the parks are closed at night.’ And one of them yelled back 'Pokemon Go' or something like that and at that point I hadn’t heard about this," says Diller. "So I had no idea what the person was yelling at me."

Since then Diller and his officers have familiarized themselves with the game and will not be ticketing players for being in parks after sundown.

Diller says the influx of activity in the parks is having a positive effect.

"You now have a much safer area because you’ve got all these people in here doing something that’s basically a fun legitimate easy going purpose and it’s going to displace in a lot of times a criminal from wanting to enter that area or to be there," says Diller.

Diller says it’s still important for park patrons to stay alert as parks are not aren not well-lit after sundown.