ATF agent
(AP Photo/LM Otero)

Arkansas Republican Senators Tom Cotton and John Boozman are pushing for answers about ATF’s March 19th SWAT raid, during which Little Rock Airport executive Bryan Malinowski was shot and killed in his own home.

“The Department of Justice confirmed to us last night that the ATF agents involved in the execution of a search warrant of the home of Bryan Malinowski weren’t wearing body cameras. We will continue to press the Department to explain how this violation of its own policy could’ve happened and to disclose the full circumstances of this tragedy. Mr. Malinowski’s family and the public have a right to a full accounting of the facts,” the Senators said in a joint statement released Friday.

ATF has yet to comment officially about Malinowski’s killing, other than to claim he fired first. But Malinowski’s family recently said in a statement that the 53-year-old airport executive likely did not know he was trading gunfire with federal agents. It is far more likely he believed he was defending himself and his wife from armed home invaders.

A yet-unidentified ATF agent shot Malinowski in the head with a carbine at least once. Malinowski lingered for two days before dying of his wounds.

A story published last week chronicled a host of less-lethal tactics ATF could have used during the raid — any one of which would have spared Malinowski’s life.

The Senators are not the only elected officials seeking answers from ATF. Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin has serious questions, too.

“As someone who couldn’t be a bigger law enforcement supporter, when our government acts in a particular way that raises questions, we have an obligation to say something. My understanding, having looked at the ATF rules is that they generally require a bodycam when there’s a preplanned raid, right? Why? Well, because information from a camera helps fill the vacuum of conspiracy and all this other stuff. So, record it with a bodycam that’s required and then there’s policy that it shall be released as soon as possible,” Griffin said during an interview with local media last week.

A Justice Department memo titled “Use of Body-Worn Cameras by Federally Deputized Task Force Officers,”recommends that local police officers assigned to a federal task force should use body cameras during “a planned attempt to serve an arrest warrant or other planned arrest; or the execution of a search warrant.”

If the cameras capture law enforcement actions resulting in “serious bodily injury or death,” the memo requires that the federal sponsoring agency and the U.S. Attorney should release the recordings “as early as possible.”

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60 COMMENTS

  1. The ATF’s complete disregard for public safety and proof they serve as a government harassment hit squad could not be more apparent. Hopes to their dissolve in the next few years.

      • Vote harder. It will certainly work eventually…

        We didn’t vote ourselves in to the current state of the ATF, which is almost a century in the making. What makes you think we can vote ourselves out of it?

        • An estimated 25% of registered Reppblicans vote, particularly in Primary elections.

          There’s plenty of room to vote harder. Maybe we should be figuring out how to wake up all those Republicans before we reach out for extra-electoral options.

  2. Of course not. You expect accountability from Federal agents? What planet are you living on?

    • Literally no one will be held accountable for this raid. Period. It’s like Waco or Ruby Ridge, if it happens it will be minimal and years if not decades later.

  3. How many other professions will get you a no knock SWAT raid for failure to possess the proper license?

  4. Well does anyone really expect Gun Control nazis who placed tape over a security camera to have body cameras? Duh.

  5. Perhaps they were wearing body cameras but don’t want to admit to it, since it was an unjustified shooting? If they’re admitting to breaking policy rules, why should they be trusted at their word?

    • I was thinking the same thing. This circumstance reminded me of the cameras placed by the Highway Department on tall poles at an onramp that had had a large number of accidents. Funny though, every time there was an accident that could implicate the Department for a dangerous condition of public property, those cameras all conveniently “malfunctioned.”

      The same thing happened in Chicago where a very wasted young man waiving a knife was shot multiple times by one officer and killed, including shots fired after the perp/victim was on the ground. For some bizarre reason, body cameras were either not turned on (one was intentionally turned off right before the incident) or “malfunctioned. The officer might have gotten away with it until a dash cam video from one of the patrol cars was recovered. The shooter is in jail now, but would not be if those present had been able to scrub all of the video and audio.

      Given how ATF operates (shoot first, ask questions later), would I put it past the ATF to scrub video that did not match the narrative? No, I would not. By the same token, how is it that despite an agency policy for using cameras, not one of the agents present had one?

    • when are police and sheriff depts from Red States finally going to refuse to accompany the feebs and atf on their stasi like home invasions?

  7. as a minimum every ATF person on site should be fired. From the appearance of this, most of them should also be prosecuted for murder. If it was within my purview, agents would never be armed with anything more deadly than a pencil and a clipboard.

    • Some operations within the ATF purview could legitimately require this kind of force, e.g., raiding the stronghold of some heavily armed gang involved in gun running. I’m not sure where that threshold would be exactly. I am 100% sure this case was nowhere near that threshold.

      • The Biden cartel would give such a group a free pass. The chance of BATF raiding the group is lower than the chance of winning a lottery.

    • as a minimum every ATF person on site should be arrested and prosecuted for murder. If it was within my purview, agency would be disbanded, and never be armed with anything more deadly than a pencil and a clipboard.

      FIFY

  8. There will be utter silence from the ACAB left on this one. They don’t care what the feds do unless it can be used against a Republican.

  9. Nothing says right wing fascism like a .gov death squad.

    And its more cost effective than throwing them out of helicopters.

  10. The ATF made the claim they were not wearing body cameras because they were not wearing body armor. But that’s not true. In the video that’s been shown so far showing them approaching the door they tape over the ring door bell camera (thus tampering with evidence) and in that video they are clearly wearing plate carriers and the plate carrier is to what the body cam attaches. This is pointed out in the below video.

    BREAKING: ATF claim they have no video of deadly raid because they weren’t wearing body armor.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqwemCt_dvI

    • And they couldn’t just arrest this guy on the way to/from work. They *had* to go in & shoot him in the head. Our government is evil.

      • That’s another thing, they were not there to arrest him. On the search warrant application they did not mark the block for ‘arrest’ as a reason for the search warrant and they did not have an arrest warrant. This was a fishing expedition, there was no real probable cause behind it under which they could justify marking the block for ‘arrest’ as a reason for the search warrant and could not justify an arrest warrant. They needed what ever they found in the search to justify an arrest under probable cause, because they did not have probable cause for an arrest at the time they did the raid.

        The ATF came ready and willing to kill, taped over the ring door bell camera to keep their further actions in breaking into the home from being recorded, staged their home invasion in hours of darkness, didn’t ID them selves as law enforcement (other coverage has outlined that the only thing the man and his wife heard was someone breaking into their home them suddenly all these armed men inside). The ATF staged a criminal home invasion, that’s exactly what it looked like and this literally innocent man acted to defend his wife and himself and home and the ATF killed him. In a criminal home invasion that’s called murder. The ATF essentially murdered this man because in their illegal and unconstitutional actions they can define anything anyway they want and create ‘defacto law’ and send out what is basically an ATF hit squad to murder someone for the civil equivalent traffic violation of driving without a license ’cause they say so.

        • I and my wife would have shot at them too under the conditions the ATF created to make it look like a home invasion. Plus we would have commanded the dogs to attack and they would have probably gotten some good licks in and probably killed a few of the ATF before they could be stopped, when you got four well trained very fast 80 lb’s sets of teeth and claws ripping at you in a dark room they are gonna be at it for a bit before they can be stopped.

        • I’m a big believer in Hanlon’s razor. This case certainly looks like an exception to that useful rule of thumb.

  11. Yea, the more I think about them covering up that camera the more I think hmm, we don’t want any record of our actions. Zee sekret poleece, Ya? Please don’t kyll me mr gestapo!

    • The FBI was recorded doing that exact same thing (covering & disabling cameras) in a recent raid. It isn’t just the ATF. It’s the entire Regime.

  12. I posted earlier where to find ATF protocols on BWCs, and basically the SAIC has the say on weather cameras are used, when they are turned off, and what to release or not release of the recordings, including anything recorded by local PD, SWAT, etc., as ALL recordings are to be turned over to ATF to do with as they see fit. Truly the Fox guarding the henhouse.
    ATF 0 3020.3a. 3020.4
    Oh, and if you thought anyone was going to do anything to protect us against this sort of shit, go search on who all voted to extend FISA…. 9/11 was the event horizon to go full-fucking retard on plans to implement Operation 1984.

  13. I got news for y’all. They were wearing body cameras and just didn’t like what was shown in the recording so it vanished and they were never wearing body cameras. The feds will NEVER produce any evidence that makes them look bad no matter how many court orders they have to ignore. There isn’t a single person in federal law enforcement who isn’t corrupt or complacent in the corruption of others.

  14. First, the sole purpose of the atf is to infringe on the right to keep and bear arms. Second he did not believe he was defending himself and his wife from armed home invaders, he was in fact defending himself and his wife from armed home invaders. Finally as all LEOs will tell you “if you did nothing wrong you have nothing to hide, which is EXACTLY why they don’t wear body cams and tape over doorbell cams.

  15. We have a recruitment crisis in the US military.
    We desperately need conscripts that are already trained in the use of firearms and functioning in a hierarchical, military style organization.

    Every BATFE and FBI agent is already well trained and experienced. They should all be drafted into the US military, issued an AR-15 with only one, five round magazine, unloaded of course, then airdropped behind Russian lines in Ukraine.

    • Elmer,

      “Every BATFE and FBI agent is already well trained and experienced. They should all be drafted into the US military . . .”

      OK, that’s some SERIOUSLY funny sh*t, right there!!! Among the plethora of government thugs, the ATF bastards stand out. They make cops look like choir boys. I think it takes a particularly sick mindset to WANT to join the ATF.

      Abolish the ATF, and take all the current agents and ship their sorry @$$es to someplace like Yemen, or Somalia. But, abolish the ATF, first.

  18. ATF, FBI, CAPITAL POLICE, NSA, CIA = GOVERNMENT GESTAPO GOON SQUADS. GUESS WE CAN THROW IN THE IRS SINCE THEY ARMED THOSE MORONS TOO. NO BODY CAMS BECAUSE THEY KNOW THAT THEY DON’T FOLLOW THE LAW.

  19. If you think you’re on their radar, install obvious cameras as decoys…..hide real cameras behind mirrors or inside smoke alarms and light fixtures. Use wireless save to cloud in case they decide to burn your place down. Give next-of-kin or lawyer access ID to cloud account.

  20. This is a person who had something to lose. They could have literally sent him or his attorney a notice to appear and he would have done so. He is not some cartel thug who would just have run across the border if the heat was on. There was zero reason to raid him except to get headlines. If he didn’t have a rifle he didn’t know it was the feds, because he was probably smart enough to know that a handgun wouldn’t work against a SWAT team with body armor.

    • Andrew,

      You’re assuming that the ATF’s “agenda” had anything to do with enforcing the law. It didn’t. They wanted to take this guy out, and they did. OF COURSE they didn’t have body cameras (or at least won’t release the footage), because it was an extrajudicial murder, plain and simple.

      We have allowed the FedGov to militarize itself (even the freakin’ DOE has a “SWAT team”!!), and they are showing us who, and what, they are. “The Tree of Liberty must be watered, from time to time, by the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Perhaps a little more tyrant blood, and a little less of patriots’??

      • Eeeeh, that’s pretty much my point. These guys were gangsters with badges doing that to him.

        The DOE has a SWAT team because the DOE is in charge of nuke plants. Most of them have a dozen guys with ARs and 400 round load outs around the clock. They also have fences with gates locked with combination locks that have the combinations right next to them. Not intended to stop someone, just slow them down long enough for one of those guys to put a few rounds into a person. I’m inclined to agree with you they should really have to outsource that to a policing branch of the feds, but at the same time I think it’d just be squeezing toothpaste around the tube.

        • Well, I could theoretically see a basis for a Dept. of Energy SWAT Team (although why not use the FBIs SWAT (HRT) Teams?), but I was actually referring to the Dept. of Education. Yep, they have purchased MANY guns, a ton or two of ammunition, and established a SWAT team. I kid you not.

      • “even the freakin’ DOE has a “SWAT team”!!“

        It’s not like the nuclear plants the DOE has jurisdiction over would ever be terrorist targets, right…

  21. “search warrant ” ?
    Let’s redo and Truth.
    –> The ATF’s planned execution of an Arkansas man.

  23. Thank God for LE.

    Without them, who would murder us in our homes with the blessing of the government and zero chance of repercussions!?

    Oh, right, Tim Griffin is on the case. I’m sure he’ll crack this one and have stiff, stiff sentences imposed.

    “There is no law so obscene that the police would not be willing to enforce it, up to and including the mass execution of innocent children.”

  24. Why would you record a preplanned murder? It’s much simpler to simply leave the cameras behind and claim “Oh, we forgot.”.

  26. Probably at gunm show when he was selling a gunm to a snitch he may have said something like,” From my cold dead hands”, or “Yeah well just letem try.”
    Therefore the Batfeces believed he was a danger to them and used force appropriate.
    Be careful of what you say and to whom you say it.
    BTW , I’ve still got raffle tickets. 3 chances for a dollar. You could be the first and the last to ever light the fuse on my UniverseEndingPrepetualFusionNuetrinoBlomb.

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