Pulaski County Prosecutor Will Jones released footage on June 20, showing a police car’s dash-camera view of the March 19 ATF raid on the home of Arkansas airport executive Bryan Malinowski.
The release of the footage comes just days after Jones concluded ATF agents and accompanying Little Rock Police Department officers acted appropriately in their use of deadly force during the pre-dawn law enforcement raid.
The newly released dash-camera footage does not show a clear view of how ATF agents acted during the raid. ATF agents themselves were not wearing body cameras. Still, the footage provides some new context as to how events played out that morning.
Jones concluded last week that the federal and local law enforcement officers provided notice before they broke down Malinowski’s door, and killed him in an exchange of gunfire. According to a timeline of events Jones provided, an LRPD officer turned on his lights and sirens as the raid began at 6:02:58 a.m.
The new footage indicates an LRPD vehicle did blare his sirens for a two-second burst, and kept his lights running as ATF agents began to bang on the door. Muffled shouts could be heard in the distance, beginning at 6:03:01 a.m. in the dash-camera’s timestamp. The exact words being shouted are not discernable from the new footage.
According to the timeline, ATF agents eventually broke through the front door at 6:03:27 a.m. and six seconds later they came face to face with an armed Malinowski. It’s at 6:03:43 a.m. that a series of pops rattle out and a call comes over the radio with someone stating they “heard gunfire.”
Moments after the shooting, there are a series of shouts, followed by the increasingly loud cries of a woman inside the home as she expresses shock and confusion at the events that had just occurred.
The Arkansas Times was the first to report on the newly released LRPD dash-camera footage and shared an hour and 16-minute version of the video. Much of the footage after the shooting consists of the same LRPD vehicle sitting outside the residence with its lights continuing to flash, along with audio of Bryan Malinowski’s wife, Maer Malinowski, sitting in the back of the police vehicle crying.
The raid had all played out because the ATF suspected the late Malinowski of engaging in unlicensed gun sales. The federal agents applied for a search warrant at the Malinowski residence, stating their belief that they might find evidence of a crime, property designed for use in a crime, or evidence of criminal profits.
ATF agents had investigated Malinowski over his sales of firearms at local gun shows. According to a probable cause section on an ATF search warrant, federal agent began investigating Malinowski after a firearm he purchased in August of 2022 turned up in someone else’s possession nearly a year later during a traffic stop in which a suspect (whose name is redacted) was arrested for being in possession of cannabis.
ATF agents proceeded to surveil Malinowski’s private gun transfers, noting his apparent lack of specific firearms business licensing. According to their warrant, ATF agents observed Malinowski selling firearms to multiple individuals at the G&S Promotions Gun Show in Conway, Arkansas in June of 2023 without appearing to ask buyers for identification.
Federal laws and regulations don’t clearly specify that a private firearms transfer must include a license check. The ATF’s own guidance states, “A person may transfer a firearm to an unlicensed resident of their state, provided the transferor does not know or have reasonable cause to believe the transferee is prohibited from receiving or possessing firearms under federal law.”
Federal law also doesn’t clearly specify when a private person transferring firearms must obtain specific federal licensing. The ATF introduced a new rule in the weeks after the deadly raid on Malinowski’s home, seeking to reframe the definition of firearms-related business activity requiring a license, but their rule has seen setbacks with federal court challenges.
The Malinowski family has insisted he had no reason to believe his activity at gun shows might have been illegal.
“ATF cannot even define or explain the law they thought Bryan Malinowski may have violated. Bryan had no reason to believe ATF might target him,” Bud Cummins, an attorney representing the family, said in an emailed statement last month.
The Malinowski family has also questioned why ATF agents elected to conduct a search warrant at his home in the predawn hours, rather than picking him up at his place of work and serving the warrant then, potentially avoiding confusion and potential for an armed confrontation like the one that instead occurred. The family has also questioned why ATF agents covered over the home security camera before they broke down Malinowski’s front door, and why they weren’t wearing body cameras during the raid.
Cummins said the Malinowski family’s questions and concerns about the raid are “far from over” despite Jones’s finding of no fault in the ATF’s use of deadly force.
This article was originally published by FreeBase News and is reprinted with permission.
