Police had been watching David Greco for months, carefully monitoring his online activity. They noted that he often “threatened, advocated and celebrated the killing of Jewish people."
He also was in communication with the man accused of walking into a Pittsburgh synagogue last year and killing 11 people, they alleged. (Greco has denied this.) On Aug. 5, after months of observation, law enforcement officers paid a visit to Greco’s Camden County home.
At first, Greco, 51, refused to answer the door. He only spoke with officers after his parents came home and allowed them in the modest home.
As police questioned him about comments he made on a far-right social media platform, Greco was “extremely agitated and angry,” authorities said, but he did not talk about acting out on his disdain for Jewish people. However, they also noted that he said he “believes that Jews are raping our woman and children” and that “force or violence is necessary to realign society.
On Sept. 6, police once again visited Greco’s home, descending without warning, to seize his gun and ammunition.
Unknown to Greco, a Camden County Superior Court Judge Edward McBride had issued a temporary extreme risk protection order earlier that day based on an affidavit regarding Greco’s behavior. The order allowed police to execute a no-knock search warrant of his home and seize one semi-automatic rifle, ammunition and his firearms purchaser ID card.
Under a law that went into effect Sept.1, called the Extreme Risk Protection Order Act, a law enforcement officer, family or household member can now petition a state Superior Court judge to take away the guns of a person who they believe “poses an immediate and present danger” to themselves or others. Even if they have not committed a crime.
Two months after going into effect, the constitutionality of the law is being challenged in a proposed class action lawsuit that was filed in New Jersey federal court last month. Greco’s case is at the forefront of the suit. It is the latest lawsuit challenging strict gun control measuresGov. Phil Murphy has signed into law over the last year.
The lawsuit challenges whether there is legal authority to execute a search warrant after a temporary extreme risk protection order is issued.
The law deprives Greco, and other gun owners in New Jersey, of their due process rights, as they are not given a chance to be heard in court before a temporary order is issued and police take firearms, says Albert J. Rescinio, Greco’s attorney. And can a gun owner have their “constitutional rights abrogated” for things said “that the government or anyone else might not like?” the attorney asked.
“Why can’t you give people the opportunity to know what is going on? To give them the opportunity to be heard?" Rescinio said. "You are being deprived of your constitutional rights without a hearing, without being given the opportunity to know what is going on.”
The lawsuit asks the court to issue a preliminary injunction throughout the state stopping the implementation of the law as it currently written.
The lawsuit was filed against Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, New Jersey’s Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness and numerous local law enforcement agencies. Grewal’s office declined to comment. The Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness did not respond to multiple requests seeking comment.