The year was 2017.
Firearm owners, pistol permit holders, and Port Jefferson homeowners Thomas and Diane LaMarco called for an ambulance to help their son, who at the time was struggling with a mental health issue.
“My son lives with us and had an issue where we had called in for some help in 2017,” said Thomas LaMarco.
Their son got the help he needed. Life moved on. So they thought.
Four years later, in 2021, the LaMarco’s were shocked at what happened next when Thomas attempted to renew his pistol permit.
Only then did Mr. LaMarco learn that the Suffolk County Police Department (SCPD) revoked Thomas and Diane’s pistol permits. They were also forced to fork over their firearms.
“I got a letter saying that my wife and I were both suspended and the reason was that our son had sought help several years earlier,” said LaMarco.
“They gave us an order to surrender our firearms otherwise, we'd be subject to arrest. We had no choice but to turn them into the Sixth Precinct.”
After surrendering their firearms as ordered to do so by the SCPD, the LaMarco’s contacted attorney Amy L. Bellantoni of Bellantoni Law, who specializes in Second Amendment issues.
Multiple legal questions quickly arose concerning the Suffolk County Police Department confiscating Thomas and Diane LaMarco’s firearms and revoking their pistol permits: does a local police department have the authority to even do that, considering the rights all Americans have under the Second Amendment?
The other lingering legal question burned at the LaMarco family: How could local law enforcement take away their guns and pistol permit for the mental health struggle of an adult son who happened to live with them, under the same roof?
Thomas LaMarco said he was shocked and angry.
“How can they totally disregard the Second Amendment? I learned that SCPD (Suffolk County Police Department) sees its internal handbook as the law of the land even if it violates the Constitution.”
Attorney Bellantoni agreed, and filed suit against the SCPD on behalf of the family one year later, in August of 2022.
She has an active Second Amendment practice. The case was brought in the United States District Court, Eastern District of New York.
The crux of the lawsuit according to the filing is that the SCPD has a “pattern over roughly ten years of denying, suspending, and revoking pistol permits for anyone who lived with someone who was seeing a therapist, was transported to the hospital for a mental health evaluation, or had ever been in the hospital for mental health treatment,” said Bellantoni.
“If the police responded to your house for someone else, not for yourself, but for someone else that you live with, then they revoke your permit and confiscate your firearms,” added the Second Amendment attorney.
The legal goal was to pin down and force the SCPD to admit they took their guns because they called an ambulance for their son, and not any issue tied directly to the couple.
When asked if proof of proper storage by the permit holder made a difference Bellantoni said, “I deposed the people from the Pistol Licensing Bureau, and they specifically said safe storage doesn't matter. If someone in the household is disqualified, everybody in the household is disqualified.”
The Suffolk County Police Department held that it had the right to revoke or deny pistol permits to anyone in the household if any other person sought any kind of help for a mental health issue.
Bellantoni felt she was on a strong legal footing, especially since she believed that was in direct conflict with the US Supreme Court’s recent Bruen decision.
In 2022, the Bruen case resulted in the New York gun law being ruled unconstitutional and that the ability to bear arms in public was a constitutional right.
The ruling included the requirement that the “historical traditions of firearm regulation” be considered not new-aged intentions brought forward by New York and other states.
As the case rolled on, and after particularly harsh words from the judge in July 2024, Thomas LaMarco felt the SCPD realized the case was not going their way.
The federal judge at one point even said “The Suffolk County Attorney fails to argue the proper application of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision (New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n, Inc. v. Bruen) by dodging the issue, asserting that the subject matter of this case is somehow outside the ambit of the Second Amendment.”
“It is obvious that this case involves the proper application of the Second Amendment,” said the court.
After these strong words from the federal judge, the SCPD returned LaMarco's permits and firearms.
The family then had a critically important decision to make: do they take back their firearms and pistol permits and drop the lawsuit, or continue their legal battle to prevent what happened to them from continuing to happen to other Suffolk County firearm owners?
Thomas LaMarco said he “felt they (SCPD) thought he would drop the case” if they returned them.”
They decided to forge ahead with their lawsuit.
When asked why he didn’t just end the lawsuit, LaMarco told the South Shore Press that “It really was the fact that Suffolk County is totally out of control with how they treated us. It was really more of a personal issue - the fact that they were just able to totally disregard the Second Amendment. That's really why we pursued it.”
Rather than continue the lawsuit, Suffolk County settled.
In what is considered a monumental Second Amendment victory for firearms owners across the South Shore, the Suffolk County Police Department agreed to stop its years-long practice of revoking pistol permits and confiscating firearms due to a third party’s medical condition, of someone who just happens to live in the same home.
As part of the settlement, the Suffolk County Police Department (SCPD) makes no admission that they did anything wrong but also agrees that they will never do ‘it’ again.
“The win is for everybody in Suffolk County, not just us. If we didn’t keep going with the case, Suffolk County would just continue doing what they did to us to everyone else,” said Thomas LaMarco.
Bellantoni said, “The County could not identify any defense to the claim that their policy violates the Second Amendment, so they settled the case rather than suffer a loss in court on the merits.”
The sweeping settlement applies to all residents of Suffolk County, not just to the LaMarcos.
In the settlement agreement, Suffolk County’s Pistol Permit Licensing Bureau is permanently restrained from taking any negative action against a licensee or an applicant or interfere with an individual’s right to possess solely based upon:
(a) the disqualification, prohibited status, and/ or perceived ineligibility of an adult cohabitant who received mental health treatment, was transported for mental health evaluation, and/or admitted to an inpatient facility for psychiatric, and
(b) for failing to report to Suffolk County Police Department Pistol Licensing Bureau that an adult cohabitant received mental health treatment, was transported for a mental health evaluation and/or admitted to an inpatient facility for psychiatric treatment.”
The South Shore Press contacted representatives from both the Suffolk County Police Department and the Suffolk County Attorney’s Office, with a list of ten specific questions about the lawsuit.
Tuesday morning, the Suffolk County Public Information Office responded without answering any of the questions regarding pistol permit revocation and confiscation of firearms.
Their statement did not answer nor address the ten questions posed by the South Shore Press: “The Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen has caused law enforcement across the state and the country to reassess pistol licensing policies which had previously been upheld by the courts. This consent decree represents the SCPD’s adaptation to this decision.”
Bellantoni responded to the County’s statement, saying, “Their policy is so patently repugnant to the Second Amendment, it didn’t take Bruen to force that realization. Even so, Suffolk County failed to take any action to remove such policies - even in the face of Bruen, which was decided in 2022.”