Details of ATF Raid Sound Like a Deadly Version of Keystone Cops

I make no effort to hide my disdain for the ATF as an organization. I have no doubt there are good, decent people who work there that just want to keep guns out of the hands of people like the Mexican cartels and other vicious criminals and have no interest in hurting innocent people. As individuals, I respect these folks a great deal.

I even feel a little bad for the ATF agents who get sent to SHOT Show every year. That has got to suck.

But the organization itself has always had massive problems.

About a week ago, I wrote about Little Rock airport executive Brian Malinowski. I guess I should say “former” for that, because the ATF killed him. His wife is suing the ATF, and we talked about a lot of what went wrong there.

Lee Williams has taken to his keyboard again to discuss Malinowski’s case, including the many failures of the ATF. From Malinowski not having broken any federal laws–only ones that were set to go into effect after his death, which isn’t breaking the law–to their use of a high-risk, dynamic entry for someone they knew wasn’t a threat and that most figured would cooperate fully, and even their failure to identify themselves, they screwed the pooch.

Which, I guess, is better than what they normally do to the pooch.

In his latest report, Williams talks about calling the Little Rock field office, and I’m sorry, if this doesn’t sum the whole thing up perfectly…

In a perfect world, Bryan Malinowski would be alive today and substantially richer after suing the ATF for violating his Second, Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights.

Unfortunately, the ATF has yet to be held accountable for shooting and killing Malinowski in his home just 16 months ago.

The ATF doesn’t want to talk about the killing.

Calls to ATF’s Little Rock Field Office, which conducted the raid, were not returned. The lone ATF agent who answered the phone said he wasn’t even sure who was the office’s Resident Agent in Charge, known as a RAC.

“I’ve only been here a year. I’m not sure,” the agent said.

He did not give his name, but his admission makes perfect sense.

How in the hell do you work somewhere for a full year and not know at least who your boss is?

I mean, in private business, you may not know who the owner is, should he be one of those who isn’t on site very often, but you know who is ultimately in charge.

This is amateur hour stuff all on its own, but maybe this is just one stupid agent. Any agency can let one of those in from time to time.

But then we have one of the issues the agents on the scene had, and you see that it’s not just one idiotic agent.

Instead of yelling “POLICE” or “SEARCH WARRANT,” agents were flustered by the home’s two sets of front doors.

“I think we were unprepared for the French doors,” ATF Agent Matthew Sprinkles told investigators later.

I won’t get into the last bit just now, but yeah, they failed to render aid, which is what cops do in pretty much every other office-involved shooting I’ve seen, and I watch Donut Operator’s videos breaking down those videos.

What gets me is that they were stymied by French doors.

Someone once told me that you have to be 60 percent smarter than the piece of equipment you’re trying to operate, and these guys were thrown for a loop by a door.

It’s not even like they’re new. French doors were invented in the 1600s.

This isn’t a federal law enforcement agency. This is the Keystone Cops with live ammo, and a man is dead because of it. He’s dead because he had a hobby of buying and selling guns in accordance with the law as it was at the time he engaged in it, and they decided that wasn’t something they could tolerate.

Even if they honestly believed he’d committed a crime, they screwed up on every other level, and rather than do their jobs, they blamed 17th-century, cutting-edge entryway technology.

It’s embarrassing to know my tax dollars pay these people.

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