The tree may be taken down but some holiday memories linger, in our minds and on the Internet. Take the example of a father noticing a disturbing scene at the Columbus Museum of Art‘s “Think Outside the Brick” Lego installation. It was a scene of the city’s downtown area, and within it a Lego figure held a rifle pointed at the entrance to a police station.

In the wake of the recent protests against police brutality in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases, and the retaliatory killing of two New York city cops, the unexpected addition to the otherwise peaceful street scene seemed quite politically charged, to say the least.

Shocked firefighter Bob Dickson was the person who noticed the figure of a gunman. He told the Columbus Dispatch, “I thought, ‘Am I really seeing that? Am I overreacting?’  ”

Dickson sent both the museum and the Central Ohio Lego Train Club, which designed the exhibit, a concerned e-mail inquiring about the gunman’s chilling presence. Both the museum and the train club assured Dickson that the figure was not meant to be part of the display. The offending Lego was promptly removed from the scene.

Speculating to the Dispatch as to the figure’s origin, museum spokesperson Nancy Colvin noted that visitors are provided with Lego to play with in a nearby area, and the vandal could have escaped the notice of museum docents and placed the gunman in front of the station. She described the incident as “very unfortunate,” adding, “We’re very sorry this happened.”