Hard 'No' From LEGO: Murrieta Cops Must Stop Usage Of Lego Heads

MURRIETA, CA—Residents in Southwest Riverside County are used to seeing the Murrieta Police Department's obscure suspects' faces on social media using Lego minifigure heads. Their strategy recently gained national attention when they shared the practice in a social media post. This practice received a hard "no" from Lego, which is not amused by the use of its licensed characters.

Lt. Jeremy Durrant released a statement Friday morning that the department has been asked to stop using Legos in this manner earlier this week.

"The Lego group reached out to us and respectfully asked us to refrain from using their intellectual property in our social media content, which, of course, we understand and will comply with," Durrant's statement reads. "We are currently exploring other methods of publishing our content in a way that is engaging and interesting to our followers."

Lego has not yet responded to Patch's request for comment on the extent of the removal that will be necessary from the police department's extensive Facebook feed.

According to Durant, the department has obscured suspects' arrest photos using various methods for several years. In addition to the Lego heads, the department has obscured photos with emoji faces, characters like "The Grinch" and, yes, even "Barbie" heads.

Posts on their social pages have included people caught stealing phones, shoplifting, taking part in drug use or sales, soliciting, or other non-violent crimes.

In each social media post, the police tell a cautionary tale of the suspect and what they did when they got arrested. There is a penchant for irreverence in the stories, and the suspects are rarely named, and when they are, the names are abbreviated. Resident comments often include shock, even more delight at the descriptions, and gratefulness at seeing the police in action.

Doing so coincides with a new California law restricting the sharing of photos of suspects on social media. California Assembly Bill 994 and Penal Code 13665 prohibit sharing mug shots of suspects in non-violent crimes unless specified circumstances exist.

"Additionally, the new law requires agencies to remove mugshots from social media after 14 days, unless special circumstances exist," a spokesperson for the department shared.

While some community members disagree with the Murrieta Police Department's long history of declining to share mugs and photos from arrest scenes, the police's social team has handled this with dignity and a bit of wry humor.

Now, they'll need to switch up their practice.

"The Murrieta Police Department prides itself on transparency with the community but also honors everyone's rights and protections as afforded by law, even suspects. To share what is happening in Murrieta, we chose to cover the faces of suspects to protect their identity while still aligning with the new law."