John Petrolino, a practicing journalist, gun rights advocate and member of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms’ Board of Directors, has filed a lawsuit against the New Jersey State Police, over repeated denials of records requests.
The lawsuit was filed in New Jersey Superior Court. He is represented by attorney Donald M. Doherty of West Berlin Township. CCRKBA is not a party to the lawsuit, but applauds his action to increase transparency in the Garden State.
In 2024 Petrolino covered New Jersey permit-to-carry statistics extensively. He discovered that Black permit-to-carry applicants are denied more than double their white counterparts for non-criminal/subjective reasons. Petrolino filed records requests seeking statistics on retired police officer carry permits to build on his coverage, all of which have been denied.
As noted in the complaint, “Plaintiff and the public has a strong interest in ascertaining the relationship between the demographics of carry permit holders amongst the general public and retired law enforcement officers including but not limited to county location, race, sex and the effect of potentially disqualifying criteria in the application population as well as the success rate for the appeal process within the New Jersey State Police.”
The lawsuit also notes, “Having established Petrolino was deprived of his common law right of access the New Jersey Civil Rights Act was violated, the clear remedy is injunctive relief compelling the production of the records to Petrolino, …”
“The NJSP has denied countless records requests that I’ve made over the years, never fulfilling even one,” Director Petrolino said. “When I emailed them about these denials, an unnamed person at NJSP basically told me to sue them — so here we are.”
“Records concerning the retired police officer permits are about as public as you can get,” CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb said. “Do they have the same level of perceived bias in their permitting statistics? Or perhaps worse yet, do they not? The public has a right to know this information. We laud Director Petrolino in his quest to hold New Jersey officials accountable by forcing them to be transparent with those they swore to serve.”
