Rikers Island might be the most notorious jail in America. The primary incarceration facility for the city of New York, it’s notable for numerous violations, inmates rioting over grilled cheese sandwiches and communication between the incarcerated and the bureaucracy controlling them being so poor that a prisoner can sit in jail for months not realizing his bail is $2. It can be a grim, desperate place among the many wounded and broken jails in our prison industrial complex. Unless, apparently, you’re looking for Pokemon!
Mass Appeal spoke to a corrections officer currently working at Rikers, who anonymously revealed that inside the prison is rife with hard-to-find Pokemon:
There’s an abundance of [them], both common and not so common on the island. I’ve caught a Weezing, two Tangela, and a Cubone. I’ve spoken to a bunch of officers who play [it] and we talk about how many there are on the island. Rikers is a Pokemon goldmine.
Before you ask, yes, he did indeed catch a Pikachu. If you’re wondering why guards are allowed to carry smartphones inside the jail facility, there’s actually a strict ban on them, but that apparently isn’t deterring the staff from finding Pokemon. The one bright spot for those worried about the break out is that there isn’t a strong GPS signal. They’re apparently even bringing the cellphones of younger relatives onto the island to help them catch them all. While this isn’t the worst place people have gone Pokehunting, or the grimmest Pokestop, you do have to wonder just why the game’s algorithm locates this many rare Pokemon at a prison. Hopefully Niantic will redistribute them closer, or at least give everybody else a better shot at a Pikachu.
(via Mass Appeal)