Pokemon players robbed at gunpoint in Parkville

Three people were robbed at gunpoint in Parkville while playing Pokemon Go, the smartphone game that is sweeping the nation, Baltimore County police say. Police released details of the incident Tuesday as they urged players to pay attention to their surroundings while participating in the game. Players visit local landmarks to try to capture Pokemon creatures. County police said that just after midnight last Thursday, the game directed three players to an area of Jasper Lane near an entrance to Belmont Park. There, two persons approached them, one of them showing a handgun, police said. The robbers took the victims’ cellphones and money, and then fled. No one was injured. Cpl. John Wachter, a county police spokesman, said police are concerned that people who are glued to their phones could put themselves at risk. The Police Department is urging Pokemon Go players to stay in groups while playing and to avoid secluded areas. They also advised players to stay in well-lit areas at night and asked people not to enter private property without permission of the owner. said county Fire Department spokesman Lt. Craig Oldershaw. Firefighters arrived to find two vehicles that hit head-on. One was a mini-van with a woman and two children aboard, the other an SUV with a man and two boys. Two state police helicopters were dispatched to take the woman, 40, and the two girls, 8 and 11, believed to be from the same family, to the pediatric trauma center at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The occupants of the SUV, a 40-year-old man and two boys, ages 10 and 13, were taken by ambulance to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, Oldershaw said. All six suffered serious, life-threatening injuries, Oldershaw said.