LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Southern California police division has been handcuffed by Lego after the toy firm requested the company to cease including Lego heads to cowl the faces of suspects in photos it shares on social media.
The Murrieta Police Division has been utilizing Lego heads and emojis to cowl folks’s faces in posts on social websites since at the least early 2023. However the altered pictures 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 coated faces?” the division wrote March 18 in an Instagram submit that featured 5 folks in a lineup, their faces coated by Lego heads with various expressions. The submit went on to reference a California legislation that took impact Jan. 1, limiting departments in sharing mugshots on social media.
“The Murrieta Police Division prides itself in its transparency with the neighborhood, but in addition honors everybody’s rights & protections as afforded by legislation; even suspects,” the division wrote.
Throughout the U.S., legislation enforcement businesses have typically posted galleries of pictures for “Mugshot Mondays” and “Wished Wednesdays” to social media in efforts to bolster neighborhood engagement. However consultants more and more level to the dangerous results of placing such photos on-line. For folks awaiting trial, mugshots can carry a presumption of guilt. And for anybody searching for to maneuver previous a legal conviction, the photographs could make it laborious to get a job and hang-out them for the remainder of their lives.
Underneath California’s new legislation, police departments and sheriff’s workplaces are actually required to take away any reserving photograph they shared on social media — together with of individuals arrested for violent offenses — inside 14 days except particular circumstances exist, just like 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 legislation prohibited posting mugshots of all non-violent offenders except these circumstances exist. It additionally stated departments ought to take away mugshots already posted to social media figuring out any defendant who requests it if they’ll show their document was sealed, their conviction was expunged or they have been discovered not responsible, amongst a handful of different causes.
Murrieta police had an inside dialogue about posting pictures of arrestees on the whole and introduced a brand new division coverage on Instagram in January 2023. The neighborhood had requested extra of their “Weekly Roundup” posts, so the division stated it began utilizing the Lego heads and emojis to adjust to the legislation whereas nonetheless participating with Murrieta residents.
However 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, after all, we perceive and can adjust to,” Lt. Jeremy Durrant stated in an announcement.
“We’re presently exploring different strategies to proceed publishing our content material in a means that’s participating and attention-grabbing to our followers,” Durrant wrote, declining additional remark.
Lego didn’t reply to a number of emails requesting remark.
The California legislation’s main sponsor, Assemblymember Corey Jackson, stated that whereas the Lego heads defend folks’s privateness, he wonders how Murrieta residents see it.
“Do they need folks, who’re being paid with their tax {dollars}, be paid to place Lego faces on folks so it may be proven on social media? Whereas they might be doing different issues that might be defending them?” Jackson informed The Related Press. “That’s for them to determine.”
Whereas Murrieta’s use of Lego heads follows the legislation, Jackson stated different businesses are looking for loopholes by posting photos displaying suspects behind police cruisers or handcuffed at crime scenes, arguing that they don’t seem to be the identical as reserving pictures. He stated his employees is searching for a authorized opinion from the state Division of Justice.
“If legislation enforcement needs the general public to belief them, and desires to assist them as they are saying they wish to implement legislation and order, how does their lively gamesmanship on making an attempt to skirt the legislation themselves, assist them in reaching that?” he stated.