US Police Who Covered Criminals' Faces with 'Lego' Eventually Yield After Protest from Lego Headquarters

Preventing Human Rights Violations of Criminals by Synthesizing Lego Faces
Received Request from Lego Headquarters to "Not Use"

The police in Murrieta, California, who have been using 'Lego' toy heads to cover the faces of minor offenders, have reportedly received a cease-and-desist request from the Lego Group.

The Murrieta Police Department stated on social media, "The Lego Group contacted us politely asking that we stop using their intellectual property (IP) in our content," adding, "We will look for other ways to post content that attracts public interest in an engaging manner."

An example of a criminal mugshot released by the Murrieta Police in California, USA. [Image source=Instagram]

When taking mugshots of arrested criminals, the Murrieta Police have been replacing the suspects' faces with Lego toy heads. However, they will now need to find new replacement images.

So how did the police come to cover suspects' faces with Lego? In fact, the Murrieta Police have used many famous toy images such as Shrek and Barbie dolls, not just Lego, to avoid publicly revealing the suspects' actual faces in mugshots.

Murrieta police digitally added LEGO faces only to minor offenders.
[Image source=Instagram]

Previously, California amended state law to enhance the human rights of criminals. In 2021, the California State Assembly decided to prohibit "disclosing a suspect's mugshot for more than 14 days without special circumstances or sharing images of suspects arrested for non-violent crimes online." This law has been in effect since January.

Famous characters or toys such as Shrek and Barbie are also used as faces.
[Image source=Instagram]

Accordingly, the police devised the idea of covering criminals' faces with toy heads to provide information about offenders to local residents while complying with the new state law.

However, some criminal law experts have criticized this approach as "going too far." The LA Times quoted Peter Hennings, a sociology and criminology professor at California Polytechnic State University, saying, "Using characters to conceal identity instead of simple methods like mosaics can ridicule the arrested individuals."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.