{"id":115911,"date":"2026-03-28T15:59:33","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T20:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=115911"},"modified":"2026-03-28T15:59:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T20:59:33","slug":"115911","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=115911","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Petrolino Sues New Jersey State Police for Violating 1st and 2nd Amendments.<\/a><\/p>\n

For decades the New Jersey State Police have maintained a \u201cgood ol\u2019 boy\u201d culture, according to one man who is trying to bring sunlight into the darkened corridors of police power. \u201cI have a tremendous amount of respect for police, but they are not more special than you or me,\u201d said New Jersey resident and\u00a0SNW contributor<\/a>, John Petrolino.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Petrolino is a U.S. Merchant Marine Officer, author, board member of the\u00a0Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms<\/span><\/a>, husband and father of a nine-year-old son.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"John
New Jersey resident John Petrolino (Photo: John Petrolino)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Problems first began when Petrolino attempted to obtain a New Jersey carry permit. The four-month process cost him hundreds of dollars for the permit itself plus training and background-check fees and must be renewed every two years.\u00a0<\/span>\u201cI have both First and Second Amendment permits,\u201d he said Monday. \u201cDon\u2019t forget they make journalists get a New Jersey press card, too.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Petrolino became curious about the Second Amendment rights New Jersey residents have compared to those of retired state police officers, so he sent a series of three public records request to the state\u2019s Attorney General and to the New Jersey State Police.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>In one of his requests, he asked for the number of state carry permits obtained by retired police officers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

His goal was simple.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to compare how retired police officers were treated versus civilians,\u201d he said. \u201cAre retired police officers having the same trends that civilians get? Is there the same potential bias in their denials? Is there favoritism?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The New Jersey State Police first asked for an extension, but then denied his request, claiming it was overly broad and that he asked for information that wasn\u2019t an actual record.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Petrolino emailed the state police records bureau, stating he did not understand why they were denying such a simple request.\u00a0<\/span>\u201cThey said they can\u2019t make firearm information public,\u201d he said. \u201cOur next course of action was to sue the state.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Petrolino and his attorney filed a\u00a0lawsuit<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in February. His first court date is next month.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe public deserves to know if there is some sort of perceived bias or preferential treatment going on here,\u201d he said. \u201cIt needs to be exposed and talked about. It\u2019s strictly a Sunshine issue. The New Jersey State Police have denied every single public records request I\u2019ve made. Even the New Jersey AG\u2019s Office has fulfilled my records requests, whereas the state police have never once returned a single one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Petrolino, a Second Amendment journalist, has made public records requests in other states, which have complied with his requests.\u00a0<\/span>\u201cBut for some reason, the New Jersey State Police do not want to give any records to the public,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Regardless of the outcome, Petrolino said he has no plans to ever leave New Jersey and move to a free state.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u201cSomeone has got to be here to fight or shut the lights off when it\u2019s over,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Petrolino Sues New Jersey State Police for Violating 1st and 2nd Amendments. For decades the New Jersey State Police have maintained a \u201cgood ol\u2019 boy\u201d culture, according to one man who is trying to bring sunlight into the darkened corridors of police power. \u201cI have a tremendous amount of respect for police, but they are … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-courts","category-goobermint"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=115911"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115912,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115911\/revisions\/115912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=115911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=115911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=115911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}