A new regulation has a single Southern California law enforcement office posting Lego heads instead of mugshots.
In an Instagram write-up from Monday, the Murrieta Police Department reported they commenced accomplishing this for the reason that of a new state regulation employing constraints for law enforcement agencies on social media.
Murrieta Police Section
“The Murrieta Police Department prides by itself in its transparency with the community, but also honors everyone’s rights & protections as afforded by legislation even suspects,” the office wrote in the post.
The new point out law, Assembly Invoice 994, prohibits law enforcement from sharing pinpointing photographs or mugshots of nonviolent criminal offense suspects. Even so, a police division or sheriff’s workplace can post a suspect’s booking photograph beneath specific instances, like monitoring down the suspect if authorities believe that they are a threat to the local community.
When law enforcement shares arrests for any crime on social media, they must use the title and pronouns supplied to them by the individual. They can use aliases of the suspect if it rewards general public basic safety.
The invoice also requires agencies to delete pics of suspects from social media within 14 times of putting up, no matter the criminal offense.
“In purchase to share what is taking place in Murrieta, we selected to go over the faces of suspects to defend their identification although continue to aligning with the new legislation,” the section wrote on Instagram.
Murrieta law enforcement executed the observe of publishing Lego faces on leading of suspects’ faces just before the regulation went into outcome on Jan. 1, 2024. While they ramped up the use in late 2023, the 1st occasion of the office masking faces seems to be from April 24, 2022. However, they made use of a unhappy-confronted emoji in this situation.
