‘Stop putting our heads on your mugshots,’ Toy company Lego tells California police

Lego has asked the Murrieta Police Department in Southern California to stop adding Lego heads to cover suspects's faces in social media posts.

Since 2023, the police department has been using Lego heads and emojis to cover people's faces in posts on social sites. However, the posts went viral last week after the department posted a statement about their policy.

The department wrote, "The Murrieta Police Department prides itself in its transparency with the community, but also honours everyone's rights & protections as afforded by law; even suspects."

Several law enforcement agencies in the US have posted pictures on social media titled "Mugshot Mondays" or "Wanted Wednesdays" to boost community engagement.

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However, according to California's new law, police departments and sheriff's offices must remove the face from any booking photo on social media. This includes people arrested for violent offences.

On March 19, Lego, the toy company, reached out to the Murrieta Police Department. Lt Jeremy Durrat said in a statement, "They respectfully asked us to refrain from using their intellectual property in our social media content, which, of course, we understand and will comply with."

"We are currently exploring other methods to continue publishing our content in a way that is engaging and interesting to our followers," Durrant wrote.

The California law's primary sponsor and assembly member, Corey Jackson, told AP that while the Lego head protects people's privacy, he wonders how Murrieta residents see it.

"Do they want people, who are being paid with their tax dollars, be paid to put Lego faces on people so it can be shown on social media? While they could be doing other things that could be protecting them?" Jackson said. "That's for them to decide," he added.

According to Jackson, the use of Lego heads by Murrieta is legal. However, he pointed out that other agencies are attempting to exploit legal loopholes by posting pictures of suspects in police cars or handcuffed at crime scenes, claiming that these images are not booking photos.

As a result, Jackson and his team are seeking a legal opinion from the state Department of Justice. "If law enforcement wants the public to trust them, and wants to support them as they say they want to implement law and order, how does their active gamesmanship on trying to skirt the law themselves, help them in achieving that?" he said.

(With inputs from agencies)