The chief director of Arkansas’s largest airport died on Thursday after being wounded in a shootout this week with federal brokers who had been executing a search warrant at his dwelling, the authorities mentioned.
Based on the authorities, Bryan Malinowski, 53, the director of the Invoice and Hillary Clinton Nationwide Airport in Little Rock, shot at brokers with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, who then returned hearth as they tried to hold out the search warrant on Tuesday.
One A.T.F. agent suffered a gunshot wound that was not life-threatening, the authorities mentioned.
In a 51-page affidavit that was unsealed on Thursday, officers provided perception into what had led to the early-morning search warrant in suburban Little Rock, which Mr. Malinowski’s household has criticized as pointless and harmful.
The authorities accused Mr. Malinowski of getting bought greater than 100 weapons lately and of illegally promoting a lot of them, together with at the very least three that had been later discovered to be linked with against the law. Mr. Malinowski first purchased the weapons legally, checking a field on buy varieties stating that the weapons had been for himself, earlier than promoting them privately to people, the affidavit states.
He would go to gun exhibits, the affidavit mentioned, together with two in Arkansas and one in Tennessee, and promote weapons to folks “with out asking for any identification or paperwork.”
Images included within the redacted affidavit present Mr. Malinowski at a gun present, standing behind a sales space crammed with firearms. The affidavit additionally states that Mr. Malinowski had offered weapons to 2 undercover brokers who had been investigating him.
Mr. Malinowski’s household mentioned in a press release issued by their lawyer that they didn’t perceive the federal government’s choices that had “led to a daybreak raid on a personal dwelling and triggered using lethal pressure.”
The household added that whereas they had been “clearly involved in regards to the allegations within the affidavit,” they nonetheless believed that the accusations didn’t “justify what occurred.”
“At worst, Bryan Malinowski, a gun proprietor and gun fanatic, stood accused of constructing personal firearm gross sales to an individual who could not have been legally entitled to buy the weapons,” the household mentioned.
The A.T.F. didn’t instantly reply to calls looking for remark Thursday evening.
The Arkansas State Police mentioned in a press release that the outcomes of an investigation can be offered to a prosecuting legal professional, who would “decide whether or not using lethal pressure was in keeping with Arkansas legislation.”
Mr. Malinowski started working on the Clinton Nationwide Airport in 2008 and have become government director in 2019, in keeping with his biography on the airport’s web site. He beforehand held management roles at different airports, together with in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; El Paso; and Lehigh County, Pa.
The Clinton Nationwide Airport mentioned in a press release on Thursday that beneath Mr. Malinowski’s management, “our airport has skilled vital progress and success, increasing companies and choices to our neighborhood and state.”