“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.”
A California police department has been ordered by LEGO to stop using character heads to cover up photos of suspects.
Lt. Jeremy Durrant of the Murrieta Police Department told Fox News, "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. We are currently exploring other methods to continue publishing our content in a way that is engaging and interesting to our followers."
The images went viral last week after it was discovered that they were being used in response to a new woke state law that prohibits law enforcement agencies from posting mug shots of people accused of nonviolent offenses on social media.
In 2021, California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1475 into law which prohibits local law enforcement from publishing mug shots on social media platforms if the individual is accused of a nonviolent crime. The only exceptions are if releasing the photo would aid in the capture of the suspect; a judge orders the release of the photo; or there is an existing threat to others.
California also expanded on the prohibition last year in amendment AB 994 to include the removal of all mug shots from social media after 14 days, regardless of the crime.
The Murrieta Police Department has been obscuring suspect photos for several years using well known characters such as Barbie heads and Shrek faces to cover the faces of suspects.
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