Arkansas lawmakers: Did ATF agents use body cameras in fatal raid?

A group of Arkansas lawmakers on Thursday called on the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to release body-camera footage of a pre-dawn raid that ended in the fatal shooting of Little Rock’s airport director.

“Were they wearing required body cameras? If not, why not? And where the hell is the footage?” Rep. Matt Duffield, R-Russellville, asked during an afternoon news conference in the Capitol.

Bryan Malinowski, 53, was shot in the head March 19 in an exchange of gunfire with federal agents attempting to serve a search warrant at his West Little Rock home. He died the next day. An ATF agent was wounded in the shootout.

Malinowski had been executive director of the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport since 2019.

Duffield and Sen. Mark Johnson, R-Ferndale, said Malinowski’s family and the public deserve answers from law enforcement. About two dozen legislators stood behind them in the Capitol rotunda.

“It’s been a month. We have seen nothing. We have heard nothing. His wife has received nothing,” Duffield said. “We have questions. Why the pre-dawn raid? ATF knew where he lived. They knew where he worked. They knew his and his wife’s routines.”

Duffield asked whether ATF agents knocked and clearly identified themselves before breaking down Malinowski’s door. He also criticized agents for keeping the airport director’s wife, dressed in her pajamas, in the backseat of one of their cars for more than 45 minutes.

Duffield also asked why no further information has been forthcoming.

“Why is no one talking? Do they not understand that the longer they wait to explain, the more suspicious and cynical the public becomes about the ATF and its actions?”

In this case, he said, the ATF has “run roughshod over the civil rights of Arkansas citizens, and some contend gotten away with cold-blooded murder.”

“Bryan did what I would have” if roused from sleep by unknown persons invading his home, Duffield said. “He did what most Arkansans would have. And he paid for it with his life. And for all we know, it was the price he paid for simply being a gun collector.”

Duffield and Johnson said they didn’t personally know Malinowski.

The ATF affidavit

Malinowski drew the attention of the ATF, according to the search warrant affidavit, when a pistol he bought surfaced in a crime committed in Canada. Ultimately, the agency connected six guns he sold to weapons seized in mostly nonviolent crimes in other states.

Agents also observed him selling guns at area gun shows and to private buyers elsewhere without asking buyers for identification. An undercover officer also bought guns from Malinowski, the affidavit said.

Buying and selling guns isn’t illegal, but Malinowski signed forms when he purchased the guns declaring he was buying them for himself and not for resale, court documents show.

The affidavit noted Malinowski bought at least 150 firearms between 2019 and December 2023. Agents took 45 weapons, mostly pistols, from his home after executing the search warrant, court documents show.

‘Widespread concern’

Bud Cummins, a former U.S. attorney who has been acting as a spokesman for Malinowski’s family, said Thursday that the family is pleased to know people care about what happened on March 19.

“I’ve never been involved in my public life in something where so many people have sought me out to express their feelings and concerns,” Cummins said in an interview after the news conference.

The “widespread concern” has included people who don’t think Malinowski did anything wrong and others who believe something warranted the government’s attention but question the severity of the response, he said.

Cummins noted that a federal policy adopted after the shooting of Breonna Taylor in an early-morning raid in 2020 requires agents to wear and use body cameras when serving search warrants.

There has been no official response to his and the family’s requests to see the body-cam footage of the March 19 raid, Cummins said.

Arkansas State Police said it is investigating the shooting at the ATF’s request, but has not released any additional information.

At Thursday’s news conference, a reporter asked Johnson to comment on rumors that ATF agents were not wearing body cameras that morning.

“It’s a true or false statement,” the senator said. “Either they were or they weren’t. If they were, we want it released. If they weren’t we want to hear the logic of why.

“We want the truth to come out,” he said.