Murrieta agrees to cease including Lego heads to suspects’ mugshots

The Murrieta Police Department has been handcuffed by Lego after the toy firm requested the company to cease including Lego heads to cowl the faces of suspects in pictures it shared on social media.

Murrieta police had been utilizing Lego heads and emojis to cowl individuals’s faces in posts on social websites since not less than early 2023. But the altered images went viral final week after the division posted an announcement about its coverage, prompting a number of information articles and, later, the request from Lego.

“Why the lined faces?” the division wrote March 18 in an Instagram publish that featured 5 individuals in a lineup, their faces lined by Lego heads with various expressions. The publish went on to reference a California regulation that took impact on Jan. 1, limiting departments in sharing mugshots on social media.

“The Murrieta Police Department prides itself in its transparency with the group, but in addition honors everybody’s rights & protections as afforded by regulation; even suspects,” the division wrote.

Across the U.S., regulation enforcement businesses have usually posted galleries of images for “Mugshot Mondays” and “Wanted Wednesdays” to social media in efforts to bolster group engagement.

But critics more and more level to the dangerous results of placing such pictures on-line. For individuals awaiting trial, mugshots can carry a presumption of guilt. And for anybody in search of to maneuver previous a prison conviction, the photographs could make it onerous to get a job and hang-out them for the remainder of their lives.

Under California’s new regulation, police departments and sheriff’s places of work are actually required to take away any reserving picture they shared on social media — together with of individuals arrested for violent offenses — inside 14 days until particular circumstances exist, such because the particular person stays a fugitive and an imminent risk to public security.

It builds on a earlier model that took impact in 2022. The prior regulation prohibited posting mugshots of all non-violent offenders until these circumstances exist. It additionally mentioned departments ought to take away mugshots already posted to social media figuring out any defendant who requests it if they will show their report was sealed, their conviction was expunged or they have been discovered not responsible, amongst a handful of different causes.

Murrieta police had an inner dialogue about posting images of arrestees on the whole and introduced a brand new division coverage on Instagram in January 2023. The group had requested extra of their “Weekly Roundup” posts, so the division mentioned it began utilizing the Lego heads and emojis to adjust to the regulation whereas nonetheless partaking with Murrieta residents.

But on March 19, the toy firm reached out and “respectfully requested us to chorus from utilizing their mental property in our social-media content material, which, in fact, we perceive and can adjust to,” Lt. Jeremy Durrant mentioned in an announcement.

“We are presently exploring different strategies to proceed publishing our content material in a means that’s partaking and fascinating to our followers,” Durrant wrote, declining additional remark.

Lego didn’t reply to a number of emails requesting remark.