Florida officials released the results of a long-awaited first official investigation into the fatal FBI shooting of a Chechen man, Ibragim Todashev. Todashev came to the attention of the FBI because of his friendship with Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Police believe the two men were also involved in a triple homicide in Waltham three years ago.
The Florida prosecutor’s report concluded that there is no evidence of intentional misconduct, or that the Boston FBI agent acted with any degree of malice when he shot and killed Ibragim Todashev, 27, in Orlando last May. Todashev, who was planning to leave the country within a matter of days, had agreed to be interviewed in his apartment.
Todashev, according to the report, was wielding a long metal pole, and lunged at the agent shortly after confessing to taking part in a triple homicide in Waltham in September of 2011. Seven shots were fired altogether, according to the report. The agent fired his .40-caliber Glock 23 pistol again when Todashev continued to advance.
“The way I wrote the report basically mirrors the analysis I actually did,” said Jeffrey Ashton, the state prosecutor for Orlando. “You have a version of events that is given by both the trooper and the agent, which are basically consistent. That version clearly establishes that it was done in self-defense. The question then becomes, is there evidence that would either confirm that version or refute that version?
”And, as I said in my report, I looked to the various kinds of evidence for that. Looked to the peripheral witnesses. Is there anything in the peripheral witnesses’ reports that would refute the officer’s version of events. And there wasn’t, in particular. Then you look to the forensic evidence. Is there anything here that would refute their version of the events? And, ultimately, I came to the conclusion that it is all consistent.“
The Florida report describes an FBI agent and two Massachusetts state policemen who were aware of Todashev’s reputation as a “fearless” fighter with an arrest history of violence.
The officers, according to the report, acknowledged that it was risky to meet with Todashev in his tiny apartment — a meeting that dragged on late into the night of May 21 into the early morning hours of May 22, a four-and-a-half-hour interview. The officers had watched videos of Todashev’s mixed martial arts bouts and took this into consideration. They discussed this and decided that the benefits of an interview outweighed the risks, according to the summary of the investigation.
The heavily redacted investigation includes more than 1,000 pages, including an autopsy, supplements, witness testimonies, diagrams and photos of the apartment and of the deceased.
The report also found that the Boston FBI agent in the company of the two state troopers “engaged in what is described by the officers as a cooperative, noncoercive discussion that eventually led Mr. Todashev to admit some involvement in the triple homicide in September of 2011 that is still under investigation.” That probe-- into the murders of Brendan Mess, Raphael Teken and Erik Weissman in Waltham-- continues.
Minutes after Florida released its report on a special website, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division sent a link to reporters spelling out it’s conclusions.
Its principle finding does not differ from the state prosecutor’s. But the DOJ’s report — which was investigated by the FBI — has determined that the evidence does not reveal a violation of the “applicable federal criminal civil rights statutes or warrant further federal criminal investigation.”
And that is a problem, says Carol Rose, executive director of the Massachusetts American Civil Liberties Union, which has joined with the Todashev family in challenging official versions of events leading up to the death of Todashev.
“It’s not at all surprising that the FBI would exonerate itself, because reports have shown in 150 cases, it’s exonerated itself 150 times.”
Todashev, a mixed martial artist, confessed a role in the triple homicides on Harding Street in Waltham, according to the report. The confession was recorded by the homicide investigators. In a WGBH News interview several months ago that is cited on page 145 of the state prosecutor’s report, John Allen, the owner of the gym where Todashev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev worked out, says he was concerned about Todashev’s temper.
“To me, Ibragim, for lack of a better word, he was crazy,” Allan said.
Allan says Todashev was a gifted fighter.
“So I remember the first day — it was with another instructor, and I said, 'Hey, ask him if he has money to pay,'” Allan said. “And, you know, Ibragim said, 'I have no money, but I’ll do whatever, I can fight for you.’ And he started to try to communicate and he was cut off by the instructor, who said 'Well, maybe you can help out around the gym, maybe like sweep the mats.’” All of a sudden [Todashev] went crazy: 'No, this is against my religion, I never sweep mats. This is woman’s work. I’m a man. I’ll never, ever sweep a mat for a man.’ You know? 'I don’t sweep mats but I can fight your enemies to my last breath and see them dead.’“
That exchange caught the attention of the FBI and the State prosecutor’s investigators.
Law enforcement officials in the months leading up to the release of the investigation findings also steered reporters to a 2010 auto incident involving Todashev and another driver, in which Todashev was described as belligerent. He was arraigned in Boston Municipal Court and the case was continued without a finding.
But friends of the Chechen man and his lawyers says his reputation violence may be a smokescreen to rationalize his killing.
”One thing to keep in mind, one thing we were aware of, is that the focus of the investigation was on the actual second the FBI pulled the trigger, where as a civil rights organization, we’re far more concerned with the potential abuses of civil rights that occurred prior to the questioning, during the questioning and after the questioning,“ said Hassan Shibly, a lawyer for the family and the head of the Florida chapter of the The Council on American–Islamic Relations. ”Only last week we documented that the FBI made sure his closes friends were either forcibly removed from the country or prohibited from returning to the country, and they made sure this was all done before the investigation was given to the media.“
In a texted statement to WGBH News, Shibly said that the report does not ”exonerate the agents of any negligence or wrongdoing on their part which could have avoided the death of a suspect in questioning. A cursory review of the report reveals several concerns and key inconsistencies and leaves many important questions unanswered.“
But Ashton says he stands by the report.
”A decision is only as good as the facts it’s based on,“ he said. ”I think that we went to great lengths to get every material fact we could about this case. You know, we even turned to Todashev’s family to say, 'If there’s anything you have, please give it to us, and we will consider it.’ If there are other facts out there that we don’t know about, then those facts might have changed my mind, but based on what we have, and what we found, I am very confident that we got this right, that this was, in fact, a use of force in self-defense and defense of others.“
Todashev lawyers, including Eric Luden, said at an August press conferece in Florida said they had faith in the Orlando state attorney’s inquiry.
”We believe that if the facts show improper conduct, Mr. Ashton will hold the law enforcement officers accountable,“ Luden said. ”We intend to demonstrate to Mr. Todashev and his family, that in this great country, there can be justice.“
That was in August. Now, the ACLU and Todashev lawyers says they are conducting their own investigation and hope to present those findings soon. With the Florida and DOJ/FBI reports in, attention now shifts to Waltham, where the murders of three men remain unsolved, despite the reported confession of a key witness, now dead.
