Man, that might happen for a high profile family/person. For average people in many places in the US, they'll be lucky if the police even pay out to cover damages to property, nevermind anything else.
Edit: and yes, I know this is just a green text and not a real story.
Not to mention a huge chunk of those Pokemon at that time were just evolution phases, sharing very similar names as their base (e.g. Charmander, Charmeleon, and then Charizard). Additionally, each evolution phase looks pretty similar to the prior. That in comparison to, say, many different varieties of ants, wasps, birds, etc. that don't look that different at a distance, especially to an 8-year-old.