It sounds like something that I am making up but no, this really happened although it was of course involving someone in a Halloween costume.
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While there are no real world images of this event or the people involved because there was too much opportunity for there to be minors in the images, I can't think of any particular reason why the Roachdale, Indiana police department would make this up. The story goes like this.
The police got a call about a man or an older teenage male that had retro-fitted a riding lawn mower with a trailer attached and was cruising the streets dressed as Pikachu to lure kids into following him and he would throw candy off the trailer. Because we live in such a sterile society these days instead of regarding this as good harmless fun, the police saw it as a threat to the community. They claim that the boy / man was driving the lawn mower erratically and dangerously but for anyone out there that has ever driven a lawn mower is aware, there is really only so much carnage you can cause at 2-3 miles per hour.
When the police arrived on site, Pikachu was not going to play by their rules. Instead of pulling over Pikachu gave the police the finger and then took off.
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I'm guessing that Roachdale is a small community because the officers were able to identify who the driver was in costume and rather than pursue him and escalate the situation they simply let him drive off, perhaps thinking he had gotten away with it. Officers later turned up at the boy's house, and it turns out that he is 19 and there was a bit of a scuffle before the unidentified lawnmower driving Pikachu was arrested. He is being charged with 2 counts of resisting law enforcement and I hope that he manages to have the case dismissed.
Was it stupid for him to resist the police? Well, of course. But I think it is dumber for the police to have interfered with his fun in the first place seeing as how he didn't hurt anyone and while there were probably a few Karens out there that wanted him "busted" I can put myself into the mind of a child and think that I would have really enjoyed seeing something like this on Halloween. I suppose we should just be happy that the police didn't taser him and beat him up right there in front of the kids.
Surprisingly, it was determined that drugs and alcohol did not play a part in the incident. It was just a case of someone who was too old to participate in the youthful event that is Halloween but wanted to take part anyway. I commend you Pikachu and hope you get the charges dropped. Certainly there is something better the police could be doing than harassing a 19 year old dressed as a beloved Japanese cartoon character.
