20-Year-Old Assassinated While Playing This Popular Game

A young man was executed by an unknown assailant at a tourist attraction along San Francisco’s waterfront as he had his head buried in his smart phone playing Pokemon Go.

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Calvin Riley was shot Saturday night by an unknown assailant at Aquatic Park near Ghiradelli Square, the U.S. Park Police said.

A family friend told KGO-TV Riley and a friend were playing the hit mobile game when he was shot.

“From what we know there was no confrontation. There was nothing said back and forth. It was just senseless, just came up and shot in the back and ran away for nothing,” John Kirby said.

Kirby said Riley and his friend had noticed someone watching them from the top of a hill that overlooks the park, but it was dark and they were mostly looking at their cellphones.

National Park Service spokesman Lynn Cullivan said investigators believe there are witnesses to the attack because it happened in the bustling Fisherman’s Wharf area. They are seeking tips.

Sgt. Robert Jansing, a detective with the U.S. Park Police, said the gunman did not take any of Riley’s belongings or try to rob him.

There was no apparent motive for the killing at all. The murderer seemingly just wanted to murder someone, and people with their faces buried in their smart phones playing games or texting, oblivious to the world, are very easy targets.

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Maintaining 100% situational awareness at all times is an impossibility, but being a “smart phone zombie” while out in public is entirely optional.

Criminals have a fairly well-defined target selection process where they identify targets by a variable set of criteria including the perceived value of the target (does this person have something I want) and the ease of which they can likely get away with the attack (is this a hard or soft target).

Most criminals who see an alert, in-shape person will pass on them as a target in favor of someone who is unaware or infirm.

If Calvin Riley was chosen to be killed truly at random by a thrill killer, odds are that he was targeted because he appeared to be an easy person to kill.

Keep your head up and be aware of your surrounding, folks.

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