Government Agents Murder American in Pre-Dawn Raid

......but where's the outrage?

(Note: Today’s article is too long for some email servers. Check the webpage to ensure you get the full story!)

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It’s a quiet morning in the middle of March. Spring is on the way, but winter is stubbornly refusing to make way for better weather. Outside a local residence, law enforcement officers stack up, ready to serve a search warrant on the premises.

The silence of the early morning is shattered by a battering ram breaking down the door, confused shouting, and general mayhem. In the chaos, a panicked resident uses a gun to defend his property — not knowing the chaos is actually being caused by law enforcement. The gunfire predictably amplifies the intensity of the situation, and police open fire on the residents — killing one.

It’s here that our story actually becomes TWO stories.

One story is about the killing of Breonna Taylor at the hands of Louisville police. Just after midnight on March 13, 2020, officers recklessly fired into her apartment after her boyfriend shot at officers who broke down the apartment door. (Even more tragically, the main target of the warrant had already been arrested before the raid.)

Breonna Taylor

This is the story (and picture) you probably recognize. The killing of Taylor sparked massive nationwide protests that merged with the George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020:

While the nation was the midst of covid lockdowns, these protests filled the streets across the country, often using the “Say her name” slogan to coerce political speech from the general public:

Hilariously (or maybe ironically), protestors even used this tactic against Rand Paul, the literal author of the Justice for Breonna Taylor Act that bans ‘no knock’ raids like the one that led to the death of Taylor. (As you can see, the legislation has gone exactly nowhere, though Paul reintroduced it last week.)

Throughout 2020, the approved narrative was that this killing (and that of Floyd) proved police are systemically racist and they should be defunded. (My guess is police had no idea who they were firing at, much less what color they were.)

In the aftermath of the killing, the city of Louisville paid Taylor’s family $12 million, banned no-knock raids, and mandated use of body cameras for all police officers. (The officers involved in Taylor’s killing were not wearing body cams, further casting doubt over the official story.) Joe Biden invoked Taylor’s name when advocating for police reform, and Oprah bought billboards around the Louisville area to demand the officers involved be arrested.

In every way, this story was A Very Big Deal.

But what about our second story, with a victim that looks like this?

Bryan Malinowski was an airport executive working at the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport. On the morning of March 19, 2024, ATF agents raided his home and ultimately killed him when he fired at what he (presumably) thought were intruders.

A couple days later, amidst a swarm of questions about the raid, the ATF released the partially redacted warrant that authorized agents to conduct a search of Malinowski’s property — including his car and his cell phones.

The search warrant was authorized in large part based on the affidavit of an unnamed ATF agent — who claims Malinowski purchased “over 150” firearms between May, 2021 and the end of February, 2024 — and a criminal who was arrested with (allegedly) one of the guns Malinowski bought and then resold. The main contention here seems to be that Malinowski should have had a Federal Firearms License (FFL) if he was reselling firearms. The affidavit is full of conjecture “based on the Affiant’s training and experience”, though some hard facts are provided:

After this interview, the ATF sent undercover agents to further investigate Malinowski:

After this gun show purchase, ATF agents began tailing Malinowski:

After ‘losing’ his tail, Malinowski……….went to work?

In addition to his ‘erratic driving’, Malinowski allegedly visited “dangerous” parts of town, claims the government:

And this led to the AFT placing a tracker on Malinowski’s car — leading to further ‘suspicious’ behavior:

He drove around without meeting anybody! Scandalous!

Ultimately, the affidavit was considered probable cause to search the property, and the judge signed off in this way:

Does a pre-dawn raid count as ‘in the daytime’?

It’s extremely important to note that agents weren’t on the scene to arrest Malinowski — they were still searching for evidence he had committed a crime:

This leads us to the fatal morning of March 19. ATF agents decided to serve this warrant at the earliest allowable time — 6 AM — at which the chances for something to spiral wildly out of control are at their highest. The agency could have simply waited for Malinowski to go to work and served the warrant there. They could have waited until he was home and served the warrant like civilized people.

Instead, they chose the path of most resistance.

Even if we believe facts as written in the affidavit — which is perhaps a mistake, considering the Harding Street raid in Houston in which an officer lied to secure a no-knock search warrant — the ATF’s strategy in serving this warrant is suspect at best.

To alleviate the concerns that I — and many others — have about the way this was handled, the agency should immediately unredact the affidavit and publicize relevant conversations about the case, be they in emails or Slack channels or whatever else. The same should be done for all surveillance videos, which should ‘back up’ the erratic driving allegations and illegal gun sales.

SOMEBODY made the conscious decision to go in at 6 AM, putting the lives of ATF agents at risk for no good reason. Who was it? Knowing the potential for disaster when raiding the home of a gun collector, why are body cameras not standard in these situations?

Why does the ATF not disclose the preferred method of serving a warrant BEFORE the judge signs off on it? Would Judge Volpe had agreed to a pre-dawn raid, or is that just part of the ATF’s discretion when the warrant says ‘6 AM to 10 PM’? What can be done to prevent these types of situations going forward?

The ATF put a fairly sizeable number of resources into this case, from undercover agents to agents tracking Malinowski, to placing a TRACKER on his car. The agency should know (better than most) that firearm collectors are a prime target for thieves — which also may explain Malinowski’s ‘erratic’ driving. Did he realize somebody was following him? If so, why would he think the trackers — or the doorbreakers — were government agents and not criminals planning on robbing him?

Most of all, where are the protests demanding answers from an agency so willing to place American lives in danger? Where is the Justice for Bryan Malinowski Act? How many of you had even heard the name Bryan Malinowski before today?

Unfortunately, this yet another case of today’s political filter being applied to current events. People who marched in the streets for months at a time can’t be bothered to feel the same rage for a white gun collector from Arkansas — and the reverse is also true.

Yet tragedy is tragedy. In both cases, government agents settled on an extremely dangerous course of action instead of serving the warrant through normal means. At ANY point in the process, cooler heads could have prevailed and asked the obvious question — “What are we gaining by doing it this way?” — yet nobody did. (Or they were ignored.)

If no-knock (or pre-dawn ‘knock and announce’) raids are a problem (they are), they are a problem irrespective of who’s living inside the home. That the politics of these situations seem to be overriding outcomes is almost as scary as having your door broken down in the dead of the night.

Almost.

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