What the Pok is wrongwithyou!?
Gamers show no respect at WTC Cuffed in sick grope of girl, 9
CALLOUS POKÉMON Go users are desecrating sacred sites across the country — including the 9/11 Memorial in lower Manhattan — all because they can’t stop playing the addictive game.
Pokémon Go players are searching for Charmanders, Bulbasaurs, Squirtles and other ingame creatures at the solemn site honoring the more than 2,700 people killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center.
Five men stood in a circle 20 feet from the south pool on Tuesday playing the game on their smartphones. At the nearby north pool, a teen visiting with her family took a break on a bench, playing the augmented reality game as water poured into the hole where one of the towers once stood.
All the Pokémon players said they were playing in a respectful manner — and noted they weren’t the only ones at the memorial staring at their phones.
But Joe Ricci, 56, of Staten Island, wasn’t buying it.
“There is no reason to be playing any kind of game anywhere near here. It’s extremely disrespectful. People should not be on their phones over here — period! How can you reflect on what happened if you’re staring at a screen?” he asked.
Bob Guerci, 35, was one of the gamers looking at a screen alongside four colleagues who worked at a video game company at 1 World Trade Center.
“I lost friends here. I would never do anything to disrespect them. Before I could not come down here without feeling uncomfortable. Now I have this game that makes me have a more positive association with the area,” said Guerci, of Red Bank, N.J.
Ricci suspected that the passage of time since 9/11 had resulted in people forgetting the significance of the space.
“They don’t get what this means, how serious this was. It’s hard to justify gaming at a place where so much bad happened,” Ricci said.
A spokeswoman for the 9/11 Memorial did not return a call seeking comment. A PROLIFIC perv tried to grab a 9-year-old girl between her legs and then attempted to molest her mom when the woman intervened.
“I like to touch women,” authorities said Paul Gandall told them when asked about his disgusting behavior. The 55-year-old was busted Monday night after a group of good Samaritans kept him from escaping, and police soon linked him to a second attack on a woman in March. Gandall (r.), who has a lengthy arrest record, was out on bail in two more groping cases.
As he awaited arraignment Tuesday, he told the Daily News he was merely “coming on to a woman” when cops arrested him.
“What 9-year-old? There was no 9-year-old,” he said, then tried to deny he had been arrested previously — before admitting, “I was picked up before for touching people. I don’t know why I touch people.”
Police and prosecutors said Gandall tried to grab the girl’s genitals as she walked with her mom on Third Ave. and E. 83rd St. at about 8:10 p.m. Monday. When her 30-year-old mom moved to stop the fiend he made a similar play for her, police said.
Gandall was tied to a March 11 incident, when he grabbed a 34-year-old woman’s butt and reached between her legs on the C train platform at 42nd St. and Eighth Ave., cop sources said.
“I like to touch women. That’s the way I let them know I like women,” Gandall told detectives, according to a criminal complaint. The perv, who has 21 prior arrests, also faces forcible touching charges related to incidents in December and February, sources said. He had been free on $1,500 cash bail before Monday’s assault and was ordered held on $75,000 bond.