The New Jersey State Police are dealing with a lawsuit after stonewalling an OPRA request for demographic information on retired regulation enforcement officer carry permits — information the company already makes publicly accessible for civilian allow holders.
Freelance journalist and Bearing Arms contributor John Petrolino, represented by West Berlin lawyer Donald M. Doherty, Jr., filed a verified grievance in Mercer County Superior Courtroom on February 27, 2026, in search of to compel the NJSP to launch information associated to its Retired Police Officer (RPO) handgun carry allow program.
The grievance, filed underneath the Open Public Data Act, the widespread regulation proper of entry, and the New Jersey Civil Rights Act, names the New Jersey State Police and an nameless information custodian dubbed “Trooper X” as defendants.
New Jersey’s Allow Dashboard
As readers could recall from December 2025 protection, Petrolino had been making an attempt to get a clearer image of New Jersey’s whole permit-to-carry panorama. The state’s publicly accessible Allow to Carry Dashboard, maintained by the Legal professional Common’s Workplace, tracks civilian allow functions and approvals — however conspicuously excludes retired law enforcement officials, who function underneath a separate statutory framework underneath N.J. 2C:39-6. As reported in January, makes an attempt to get even primary accounting figures from the NJSP had already been batted again.
What the Data Request Really Requested For
The OPRA request on the coronary heart of this lawsuit, filed on January 27, 2026, was significantly extra focused than merely requesting allow numbers. Petrolino sought copies of the RPO preliminary utility varieties from 2024 and 2025, and renewal functions from 2024 by way of the date of response — however volunteered to just accept closely redacted variations containing nothing greater than county of residence, intercourse, race, sure/no solutions to the applying’s disqualifier questions, and the ultimate willpower of accredited, disapproved, or granted on attraction.
He even supplied to just accept a spreadsheet abstract in lieu of the particular varieties. His widespread regulation curiosity was acknowledged plainly within the request: he’s a credentialed journalist who covers Second Modification points.
The Denial and the Non-Reply That Adopted
The NJSP denied the request on February 5, citing N.J.A.C. 13:54-1.15, a regulation that limits the discharge of firearms allow data to authorities actors working in official capacities. The denial was issued by the nameless Open Public Data Unit with no particular person signature, which itself varieties the premise of a separate rely within the grievance — OPRA requires custodians to signal and date denial varieties, and the regulation anticipates an identifiable human being who will be held accountable.
Petrolino adopted up by electronic mail on February 12, noting that whereas the regulation could effectively apply underneath OPRA, it does nothing to deal with his invocation of the widespread regulation proper of entry, and asking the NJSP to clarify what state curiosity justified withholding purely demographic information with no private identifiers connected.
The NJSP’s February 13 response acknowledged the widespread regulation declare and acknowledged {that a} balancing of pursuits had been carried out, however articulated no precise curiosity on the state’s half past a common assertion that confidentiality of firearms allowing information outweighs the general public curiosity in disclosure.
Why the Lawsuit Argues the State Has No Leg to Stand On
The grievance argues that this non-answer is proof that no actual balancing check came about in any respect. The transient supporting the Order to Present Trigger walks by way of every of the six components established in Loigman v. Kimmelman, 102 N.J. 98 (1986), discovering that each single one favors disclosure.
Releasing anonymized demographic information — the identical classes the state already publishes about civilian allow holders — can not discourage anybody from making use of, can not determine any particular person, has no bearing on company self-evaluation, includes purely factual information relatively than coverage deliberations, and has nothing to do with any pending disciplinary proceedings.
The grievance additionally notes that the New Jersey Supreme Courtroom beforehand addressed information practically equivalent to those in Southern N.J. Newspapers, Inc. v. Township of Mt. Laurel, 141 N.J. 56 (1995), discovering that N.J.A.C. 13:54-1.15 didn’t foreclose disclosure underneath the widespread regulation proper of entry — and in that case, the newspaper was in search of full disclosure relatively than the extensively pre-redacted information Petrolino has already agreed to just accept.
Who Is ‘Trooper X’?
Past the information dispute, the go well with raises a structural drawback with how the NJSP handles OPRA. The company doesn’t determine a information custodian by title wherever on its web site or its OPRA varieties. Responses are issued by the generic “Open Public Data Unit (NS)” with no particular person signature.
OPRA explicitly requires a named, identifiable custodian — somebody who can signal varieties, be held to penalties for violations, and be topic to the form of self-discipline the statute contemplates. The grievance asks the courtroom to order the NJSP to designate and publicly determine a selected particular person as its information custodian, along with compelling manufacturing of the information.
The Civil Rights Angle
The three-count grievance proceeds underneath OPRA and the widespread regulation proper of entry (Depend 1 addressing the custodian drawback, Depend 2 addressing the deserves of the information request), and the New Jersey Civil Rights Act (Depend 3), which offers for injunctive aid and lawyer’s charges when a authorities actor deprives somebody of a substantive proper secured by the legal guidelines or Structure of New Jersey.
The transient argues at size that the widespread regulation proper of entry qualifies as such a proper, tracing it from English widespread regulation by way of New Jersey’s colonial historical past, Ferry v. Williams (1879), and the continuity clause of the 1947 State Structure.
Why This Information Issues
The underlying journalistic goal right here is simple, and the general public curiosity is actual. Petrolino’s prior reporting on New Jersey’s civilian carry allow information revealed, amongst different issues, that Black candidates had been being denied permits at charges dramatically increased than white candidates — a disparity that, thus far, the state has declined to deal with in any significant method.
Whether or not that very same sample holds within the RPO program, whether or not candidates with home violence histories or felony backgrounds are succeeding or failing at charges completely different from their civilian counterparts, and whether or not the RPO approval course of is working persistently throughout counties — none of that may be recognized with out the information the NJSP is sitting on.
The state publishes demographic breakdowns for one class of carry allow holders. There isn’t any principled purpose to refuse the identical classes of data to a different. The lawsuit is now earlier than The Honorable Robert T. Lougy, A.J.S.C., in Mercer County.
It is a growing story and might be up to date as proceedings advance.
