Friends are confident he would never jeopardize his career in airport management by knowingly flaunting a regulation pertaining to his weekend hobby.
It would have been a workday for Bryan Malinowski, executive director of the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport. But at 6 a.m., an hour before sunrise on March 19, he was still in bed drifting in peaceful sleep.
Outside, a convoy of 10 law enforcement vehicles rolled into his upscale neighborhood in West Little Rock, Arkansas, parking near his 3,000 square foot home, a neighbor’s doorbell camera shows.
Wearing full tactical gear and holding automatic rifles in the ready position, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), walked up the darkened sidewalk to the front door of the Malinowski home.
The first ATF agent reached toward the Malinowski’s doorbell camera and rubbed a piece of opaque tape on the camera lens, obscuring the view.
“At this stage, there is no publicly available evidence showing whether agents knocked on the door or announced their presence, adequately identifying themselves,” Attorney Bud Cummins, who represents the family, said in an email statement released on Monday.
Mr. Malinowski was jolted out of sleep by the sound of the door crashing in. He grabbed a gun.
“His wife believed the noise must have been intruders and she fully believes her husband thought the same. He loaded a magazine into a pistol and emerged from the master bedroom into a hallway leading indirectly to the front entryway,” Mr. Cummins described of the incident.
“He reached a corner in the hall and looked around it to see several unidentifiable figures already several steps inside his home. We do not know who shot first but it appears that Bryan shot approximately three times at a decidedly low angle, probably at the feet of the intruders who were roughly 30 feet away.”
The ATF has previously said Mr. Malinowski shot first.
Agents immediately returned fire and struck him at least once in the head, causing massive injury to his skull and brain, Mr. Cummins said.
His wife of 25 years, Maer Malinowski, was taken outside, where it was 34-degrees and, still wearing her thin night clothes, she was placed in custody in the back seat of a police car, Mr. Cummins said. She was not allowed to go to a neighbor’s home for clothes or to use the bathroom for four or five hours.
Mr. Malinowski, 53, died in the hospital two days later.
An avid gun and coin collector, Mr. Malinowski sometimes sold guns and coins privately, or at gun shows.
The ATF put a tracker on his car in February after watching him for months, the affidavit shows. The agency believed Mr. Malinowski was selling guns without a $200 Federal Firearms License (FFL) and without asking buyers for the proper information. According to an affidavit of probable cause, some of the guns he had sold were recovered during the commission of a crime, although the crimes did not involve the direct use of guns.
In one case, police made a traffic stop and found the driver had a gun allegedly sold by Mr. Malinowski, plus marijuana and a 4-year-old child in the car. In a similar traffic stop, police recovered more marijuana and a gun. And in a third traffic stop, again with marijuana in the car, a person who had been previously convicted of robbery and was prohibited from buying or possessing a gun, had a gun previously purchased by Mr. Malinowski just 15 days before that traffic stop. An interview with the person in the car, the individual revealed that the gun was purchased at a gun show. He identified Mr. Malinowski in photos.
But gun sellers are not obligated to know where guns go after they are sold, Mr. Cummins said, and the affidavit does not indicate he was going to be charged in connection to the traffic stops.
“In Arkansas, a private seller may legally sell a firearm without holding an FFL and without filling out forms or conducting background checks. A private seller may do so until such time they cross a subjectively defined barrier becoming ‘a person engaged in the business of selling firearms.’” Mr. Cummings said. “There is no bright line test. It is a subjective test.”
A citizen’s ability to sell firearms without a license is sometimes called the gun show loophole. For decades, there has been discussion and bills in Congress to close the gun show loophole. None have passed. But in 2023, the ATF proposed new regulations to tighten the loophole.
“Mr. Malinowski’s family and close friends don’t think he had any inkling the ATF was concerned about his gun show sales,” Mr. Cummins said. “They are all confident that he would have never jeopardized his career in airport management by knowingly flaunting a regulation pertaining to his weekend hobby.”
Body Camera Video Not Released
In the days after the shooting, Mr. Malinowski’s family asked why the ATF had not arranged to meet him at his workplace to communicate with him that he was under investigation.
“The justification for the search involved suspicion of a crime carrying a puny 0–6-month U.S. sentencing guideline range, which typically results in a sentence of probation or more often, probation ending with complete dismissal,” Mr. Cummins said.
The ATF did not respond to a request for comment. It has not said when or if it will release body camera footage from the agents who entered the home that morning.
In response to the 2020 death of Breonna Taylor, who was shot in her Louisville, Kentucky apartment after a group of Louisville Metro Police officers forced entry into the apartment as part of a drug investigation, President Joe Biden, in 2022, issued executive order 14074. The order requires federal agents to use body-worn cameras when executing search warrants and to make an “expedited public release” of such video after incidents involving serious injury or death to promote transparency and accountability.
“In spite of requests to ATF on behalf of the Malinowski family, no … recordings have been released. ATF has made no public statement since the March 19 shooting of Bryan Malinowski,” Mr. Cummins said.
The law requires law enforcement to identify themselves and give a person a reasonable time to answer the door, Mr. Cummins told The Epoch Times in a phone interview. He added, the law implies a person should be given time to recognize that it is law enforcement at the door.
“The whole purpose of the exercise is for them to give the occupant an opportunity to submit to the authority of law enforcement. But to do that, you’ve got to know that they’re law enforcement. I don’t know why most people buy ring cameras, but I think it’s to find out who’s at the front door. To cover [the camera] up seems counterproductive if your goal was for them to know you are law enforcement, so they’ll submit to your authority, open up, and let you in.
“We don’t have all the evidence. The evidence we have tends to show that the search was not conducted legally.”
The Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission voted last week to give a $24,000 bonus to Mr. Malinowski posthumously for a productive year of work, during which he expanded the Falcon Jet facility and secured money for a terminal canopy to shelter arriving vehicles from the elements.
Beth Brelje is a national, investigative journalist covering politics, wrongdoing, and the stories of everyday people facing extraordinary circumstances. Send her your story ideas: Beth.brelje@epochtimes.us
