On Friday, an Arkansas prosecutor said a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) agent was justified when he fatally shot Little Rock Airport Director Bryan Malinowski in March. In a letter, Pulaski County Prosecutor Will Jones said that no charges would be filed. According to an affidavit released after the shooting, the ATF was conducting a search warrant after they said Malinowski bought over 150 guns and resold many without a dealer’s license.
According to a three page letter detailing a timeline of the incident written by Jones, ATF agents and the Little Rock Police Department showed up at Malinowskis home at 4 Durance Court around 6 a.m. that morning. Two seconds before 6:03, an LRPD officer turned on his vehicles emergency lights and siren “to announce the presence of law enforcement.” ATF agents then began knocking on the front door and announcing their presence. Bryan Malinowski and his wife, Maer, “were awake in their bedroom when they heard knocking at the door,” the letter says. Less than 30 seconds later, agents used a battering ram to break down the door. About 15 seconds after that, Malinowski fired the “first of four shots” from a Colt Defender .45 handgun. An ATF agent returned fire immediately afterwards, “discharging three shots from his agency issued M4.”
Rumors also circulated that agents shut off the power to Malinowski’s home. Jones responded to those rumors in his letter stating, “A records subpoena to Entergy revealed that there was no disruption of service to the home on March 19.” After reviewing the Arkansas State Police investigation of the shooting, Jones says the agents were justified in lethal action if, “the officer reasonably believes that the use of force is necessary to defend himself or a third person from the use of deadly force.”
The attorney representing Malinowski’s family, Bud Cummins, says things are far from over. “The state’s investigation didn’t attempt to make independent judgments about whether ATF violated the law when they broke down Mr. and Mrs. Malinowski’s front door. But that question should be a matter of grave concern for the rest of us,” Cummins said. “It’s especially concerning that ATF agents waited a ‘mere 28 seconds’ after beginning to knock before breaking down the door,” Cummins said. Cummins added, “A search warrant is not supposed to necessarily be a license for a home invasion, especially during an investigation of such a low-level violation with such little risk involved in the search. ‘Reasonable’ time can be short in certain cases, such as those involving narcotics or other evidence that can be destroyed, or when there is a risk of someone fleeing. None of those or any other ‘exigent’ circumstances were present on the morning of the Malinowski raid.”
All four Arkansas congressmen have asked the state police to turn over the Malinowski case file to Congress by June 26.
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