© Murrieta Police Department
The Murrieta Police Department has been posting hilarious arrest and lineup photos with suspects' faces replaced by Lego heads to comply with a woke state law protecting offenders' rights.
Images on the department's Instagram page show the Lego blocks with a variety of facial expressions — crying, frowning, smirking or raging — digitally superimposed onto the bodies of people being busted.
One appears to show two people handcuffed in the back of a squad car — with the Lego face on one angrily looking at the other, whose toy head is crying.
Another shows five people in a lineup — completely unrecognizable because of the toy heads.
The Photoshop-savvy law enforcement agency explained Monday that it is shielding detainees' faces to comply with a new state law prohibiting the release of mugshots and booking photos of those accused of nonviolent crimes.
The law, signed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom last September and implemented on Jan. 1, also requires police departments to remove other mugshots from social media after 14 days.
"The Murrieta Police Department prides itself in its transparency with the community, but also honors everyone's rights & protections as afforded by law; even suspects," the post read.
"In order 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."
But the practice is nothing new for the Murrieta police: the agency has been obscuring suspects' faces for a couple of years now, also using emojis, Barbie dolls and even "Shrek" characters.
"Some of the reasons were the presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law, the effects a post could have on an individual or their families outside of the criminal proceedings they may be subject to (public shaming) and some of it came down to workload," the department previously wrote.
"Our goal is to keep our citizens informed on what is occurring in the City in which we all live as well as the work the police department is doing on behalf of the citizens," it added.
The police department's use of Photoshop has divided social media followers.
"These are so hilarious!" one user gleefully remarked on the Lego booking photos.
Another joked: "Those Lego people just seem to never learn."
Many commenters, however, argued that shielding suspects' identities under the new state law essentially amounted to protecting criminals.
"The point of the mugshots is that people know who is dangerous, YOU IDIOTS," one user seethed. "Why not just stop arresting anybody? What good is it anymore?" another wondered.
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