FBI agent kills man linked to Boston bombing suspects

[stickdog99]

The FBI Changes Its Story (Again) on the Ibragim Todashev Shooting

Law enforcement officials are still trying to explain how a supposedly peaceful interview with an important witness in the Boston bombing case turned into a deadly shooting, but as usual, every new attempt to explain the death of Ibragim Todashev only raises more troubling questions. After originally accusing the suspect (and potential murderous accomplice of Boston bomber Tamleran Tsarnaev) of attacking an FBI agent with a knife, and then walking back that claim entirely, an new anonymous source says Todashev may have injured the agent with a table and a metal pole. Or maybe not.

Here's the way the attack was described in The New York Times. Everyone seems to agree that after several hours of interrogation, Todashev was prepared to confess to an unsolved murder that he and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were connected to. Then things get a lot less clear:

At that moment, Mr. Todashev picked up the table and threw it at the agent, knocking him to the ground. While trying to stand up, the agent, who suffered a wound to his face from the table that required stitches, drew his gun and saw Mr. Todashev running at him with a metal pole, according to the official, adding that it might have been a broomstick.

So not only has the story changed again, it has now changed twice in the same sentence. The weapon has now gone from nothing to a knife, back to nothing to a table to a metal pole to a broomstick. Todashev was also apparently shot more than once, after an initial volley of "several shots" somehow failed to bring him down.

Oh, and there's a pretty big difference between a metal pole and a broomstick, and the fact that the Times source can't decide which one it is suggests they don't really know happened either. (CNN reported that Todashev owned a samurai sword that was in the room, but no one has yet suggested that he wielded that at any time.) With at least three witnesses, you're likely to get three different stories and we might never know which, if any of them, is the most accurate.

The new version of events also doesn't answer the question of why the FBI agent immediately began firing his weapon or why the other police officers in the room failed to intervene. Which leaves us right back where we started: A confusing scene, an apparently unnecessary death, and a very suspicious explanation. And on top of all that, the FBI lost what could have been one of their most valuable sources of information on what the Tsarnaev brothers were really up to before they carried out their attack.

UPDATE: John Miller of CBS News has a few extra details this morning that add to the Times account. According to his sources, one of the Massachusetts state troopers in the room became concerned that Todashev might try something, but rather that speak up and provoke him, he sent a text to the FBI agent. When the agent looked down to read the text, that's when Todashev attacked, again with an unknown object. The other officers in the room never pulled their guns.

Miller (who is a former FBI agent himself) also says an FBI shooting review board will investigate the shooting.


LOL at John Miller's extra detail. He's the spook who always gets the scoop!

[stickdog99]

Atlantic Wire Analysis

What really confounds me about this account is the part where Todashev allegedly ran at the agent "with a metal pole" that "might have been a broomstick." If he was running with a large object in his hands when killed, how is there any doubt about what the object is? Anyone could just look at the dead guy and see what was in his hands, right? Or examine the stuff in the evidence locker. Pole or broomstick? This source doesn't know. It's also quite a feat to be shot, struck, knocked backward, and charge again toward a gun, especially for a guy who, according to his friends, was in recovery from leg surgery. And, of course, it's odd that this latest story is so different from the previous ones that have leaked out. A knife, a samurai sword, a metal pole, and a broomstick don't seem like objects that would be confused for one another.

Finally, this account has a police detective who ostensibly sees the table overturned, sees the FBI agent get injured, sees Todashev attacking with a poll, sees the injured agent draw and fire his gun as he tries to get up, sees Todashev knocked back and rushing forward again... but never fires his own weapon.

Why?

All that said, seeming discrepancies are often explained as investigations wear on, and it's certainly plausible for a strong, physically fit man to seize a moment of inattention during an hours long interrogation, upturn a table, and grab a household object with which to attack his interrogators. Forensics experts can presumably shed light on whether the wounds on Todashev are consistent with being shot, while standing, by an FBI agent in a "while trying to stand up" position. It would be great if the various reporters who've gotten quotes from anonymous law enforcement officials went back to their sources and demanded an explanation. "Why did you tell me x when officials are now saying y happened?" There's also the matter of the alleged confession that, by this latest account, Todashev had already started to write.

I wonder if we'll ever get to see that.

A few thoughts in conclusion. It's important to bear in mind how little we know for sure at this point. It could be that the FBI agent and detective involved in the shooting acted honorably and responsibly. It's also possible that this man was needlessly and wrongfully killed. The need to resolve that uncertainty, insofar as it is possible, is why as independent an investigation as possible is needed. It also seems clear to me that the FBI should assign someone trustworthy to set forth what it knows to be true on the record, in order to reduce misinformation as much as possible.

[stickdog99]

Where did the agents go? NY Times don't know

When the FBI first admitted that it had killed Ibragim Todashev, it indicated there were at least 5 people at the scene: Two Massachusetts State cops, the FBI Agent being blamed for shooting Todashev, and “law enforcement personnel” — plural — whom it chose not to describe at all.

The FBI is currently reviewing a shooting incident involving an FBI special agent. Based on preliminary information, the incident occurred in Orlando, Florida during the early morning hours of May 22, 2013. The agent, two Massachusetts State Police troopers, and other law enforcement personnel were interviewing an individual in connection with the Boston Marathon bombing investigation when a violent confrontation was initiated by the individual. During the confrontation, the individual was killed and the agent sustained non-life threatening injuries. As this incident is under review, we have no further details at this time.

That number correlates with the third-hand report of Kushen Taramov, Todashev’s friend who was at the site of the killing, but then sent home after some hours of interrogation himself.

The father said Taramov told him that U.S. agents interrogated him on the street while five officials interrogated Todashev in his Florida house for eight hours on May 22, the night he was shot.

But the anonymous law enforcement sources now trying to straighten out the FBI story seem to have kidnapped or disappeared those at least two other “law enforcement personnel.” CNN obliquely notes this, though doesn’t explain the discrepancy (or point out FBI’s official statement seeming to support Todashev and Taramov’s version).

Contrary to what a U.S. official said, Todashev’s father claimed there were “four of five” law enforcement agents with his son at the time, “all armed.”

The rest of the press seem to be blithely disappearing the at least two additional “law enforcement personnel” without comment, now reporting that just the FBI Agent and two MSP cops were at the scene.

NYT:

The shooting occurred after an F.B.I. agent from Boston and two detectives from the Massachusetts State Police had been interviewing Mr. Todashev for several hours about his possible involvement in a triple homicide in Waltham, Mass., in 2011, according to the law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing.

CBS:

The FBI says 27-year-old mixed martial arts fighter Ibragim Todashev was killed last week during a violent confrontation in his Orlando home while an FBI agent and two Massachusetts state troopers questioned him about his ties to slain Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, as well as about a 2011 triple slaying in Massachusetts.

AP:

The FBI says Todashev was being questioned by an FBI agent and two Massachusetts state troopers about his ties to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, as well as about a 2011 triple slaying in Massachusetts.

Of course, between the time FBI said there was one FBI Agent and two MSP cops and at least two other “law enforcement personnel” and the FBI’s currently operative story that those at least two other “law enforcement personnel” weren’t there, one anonymous source was claiming secondhand that the (unnumbered) other “law enforcement officials” had stepped out of the room before the violence and killing started.

An official said that according to one account of the shooting, the other law enforcement officials had just stepped out of the room, leaving the FBI agent alone with Todashev, when the confrontation occurred.

The current NYT version, which for some reason a bunch of commentators are taking as credible, suggests one “detective” was in the room when the violence and shooting went down, but did not fire a weapon.

[Todashev] then started to write a statement admitting his involvement while sitting at a table across from the agent and one of the detectives when the agent briefly looked away, the official said.

At that moment, Mr. Todashev picked up the table and threw it at the agent, knocking him to the ground.

While trying to stand up, the agent, who suffered a wound to his face from the table that required stitches, drew his gun and saw Mr. Todashev running at him with a metal pole, according to the official, adding that it might have been a broomstick.

The agent fired several shots at Mr. Todashev, striking him and knocking him backward. But Mr. Todashev again charged at the agent. The agent fired several more shots at Mr. Todashev, killing him. The detective in the room did not fire his weapon, the official said.

There are a lot of ongoing problems with the FBI’s story, which I laid out here, and Conor Friedersdorf catalogued here. But this is an increasingly fascinating one.

The coroner in this case declared Todashev’s cause of death a homicide. But the FBI seems to be intent on ensuring that at least two people who were present at the scene of that homicide disappear entirely.

[stickdog99]

CNN

A samurai sword was in the room when Todashev sat down with two Massachusetts State Police detectives and a Boston-based FBI agent, but it was moved out of his reach.

After one of the detectives left the room, the other noticed Todashev was acting odd and he texted that sense to the FBI agent with him -- the U.S. official told CNN. Those two law enforcement officials were the only ones with Todashev, according to this account.

Suddenly, Todashev knocked over a table -- knocking the FBI agent back into a wall -- and came at him with some sort of "long-handled object" that he'd grabbed from behind him, according to the official.

The agent fired a few rounds, but Todashev kept on coming, the official said. He finally stopped after yet more gunshots.

"It all happened in less than a minute," said the U.S. official.

This detailed account -- as well as the comments from the elder Todashev -- come a day after CNN affiliate WESH and the Washington Post, citing unidentified sources, reported Todashev was unarmed when he was shot.

But the U.S. government official briefed on the investigation rebuffed the idea that Todashev wasn't a threat -- noting, for instance, that he could have taken the agent's gun.

"He was armed. Maybe it wasn't a weapon, but he had a long object," the official said. And because of Todashev's martial arts expertise, "he was a weapon himself."

...

Abdulbaki Todashev doesn't believe his son admitted to any involvement in the Waltham triple homicide, saying "the FBI can say anything now because a dead person can't defend himself."

[hiddenite]

Have we officially reached farce status yet ?

Inquests are really handy tools in these circumstances.

On that thought I noticed how many American observers were startled and surprised that, in the Woolwich incident, the police markswoman shot and injured the 2 assailants rather than killing them or fellow officers and without tanks. , Both survived and have recovered enough to be charged.

I think on that evening ,when things got a bit overheated on here, that Macruisken and myself (in as much as I was involved) were both speaking from a land in which shooting suspects is frowned upon and sarcasm is a normative response to power. And from a position of assumption that these events would have to be investigated , explained, even if corruptly and without honesty.

Obviously it happens here see Mendez shooting amongst many others , but is not deemed acceptable or normal . It does require explanation even if lies are tolerated.

Since leanring that suspects can be killed without question nor explanation I see that debate then with other eyes , now.

[compared2what?]

Have we officially reached farce status yet ?

Inquests are really handy tools in these circumstances.

On that thought I noticed how many American observers were startled and surprised that, in the Woolwich incident, the police markswoman shot and injured the 2 assailants rather than killing them or fellow officers and without tanks. , Both survived and have recovered enough to be charged.

I think on that evening ,when things got a bit overheated on here, that Macruisken and myself (in as much as I was involved) were both speaking from a land in which shooting suspects is frowned upon and sarcasm is a normative response to power. And from a position of assumption that these events would have to be investigated , explained, even if corruptly and without honesty.

Obviously it happens here see Mendez shooting amongst many others , but is not deemed acceptable or normal . It does require explanation even if lies are tolerated.

Since leanring that suspects can be killed without question nor explanation I see that debate then with other eyes , now.

Nobody here doesn't frown upon cops shooting unarmed suspects; suspects who are holding long objects; or -- in fact -- heavily armed suspects, most of the time. I mean, self-defense is justifiable for everyone. But the cops are supposed to be trained to defend themselves in some manner that falls well short of dozens of them all emptying their weapons into one person at once.

I don't recall any debate on that point, and certainly not any involving Mac. (I guess I also thought that the police in Germany usually got away with whatever acts of brutality they committed, same as here. They're just less likely to involve guns on either side there.) But....Well. I guess that in the event that you thought that my having said that the system here did not typically include inquests for suspects who had been shot by cops was some kind of an endorsement of it, it wasn't. As I said, it's completely indefensible. I was just saying it because it's so.

I don't actually make those rules. In fact, the only reason I know anything about them at all is that I've always been outraged by them. Like....I don't know. I never think about Bill Clinton without thinking about Ricky Ray Rector, For example. That he was willing to finish the job the cops started there in order to stay electable was really all I ever needed to know about him to know that he'd be capable of any evil act that the pursuit of power required. I felt that in a just world it should have disqualified him as a candidate, not the reverse.

But as I also said, the system persists primarily because very few people bother caring about issues that don't affect them personally, unless or until they think there might be something in it for them, And many -- probably most --feel some version of the same way Rand Paul says he does in my tag line about whatever kind of person it is they picture when they picture someone coming out of a liquor store with a weapon and fifty dollars cash. Quite a few of them might even entertain fantasies about doing the job themselves, under the right circumstances

So it's mostly not really the kind of cut-and-dried, the-state-shoots-citizens-and-citizens-tolerate-it scenario you seem to have in mind. As a general rule, in reality, only some kinds of citizens get shot by cops routinely enough to have some reasonable expectation of that possibility when dealing with cops. And most of the others only tune in selectively, if at all. .
_____________

Are police there brought to justice often via inquest?

[stickdog99]

A typical response is that of a friend of mine, "If the cops shot him, they must have had good reason."

[Nordic]

A typical response is that of a friend of mine, "If the cops shot him, they must have had good reason."

Oh, there was a good reason, all right. The reason was that the REAL reason is not to be known.

[pianoblues]

Tamerlin, Brian, Danny and Ibragim all have Mercedes, go figure...

It's significant to my sense of smell that Ibragim's blonde girlfriend (is the apartment rented to her?) was brought in on immigration charges; hmmmm...which? Wondrin' when we'll be able to hear from her- if ever. Anything like Dzhokhar's school buddies who apparently had missed some classes and so were going to possibly have their student visas revoked, that is before the story of their going to his dorm room and grabbing his back pack and laptop came up?

[Crow]

OK, I'm not trying to say that it is impossible to know someone well who has somehow managed to hide his or her mass murderousness from you. What I was trying to say (admittedly in a condescending manner that I now regret) is that if one assumes the accused are 100% innocent, then the accused's parents declaring they are certain that their kids are not mass murderers is perfectly normal.

It is somewhat normal.

I follow a lot of crime stories. The family and friends of the accused often react with bafflement and denial that their loved one could ever hurt someone. You don't know him like I know him. He could never do this. There's a mistake. Wait till the truth comes out. Etc. When the truth does come out, they usually get really quiet. Those are the normal (or somewhat normal) people.

The Tsarnaev parents and Uncle Ruslan and, to a lesser degree, Todashev's father, responded differently. Right away, they were pointing fingers at everyone else. It's a setup. My son could never commit a crime. (Demonstrably false.) It's almost like they go right into counter-accusation mode because they already have a lot of practice at it? See also Lindsay Lohan and family.

[stickdog99]

OK, I'm not trying to say that it is impossible to know someone well who has somehow managed to hide his or her mass murderousness from you. What I was trying to say (admittedly in a condescending manner that I now regret) is that if one assumes the accused are 100% innocent, then the accused's parents declaring they are certain that their kids are not mass murderers is perfectly normal.

It is somewhat normal.

I follow a lot of crime stories. The family and friends of the accused often react with bafflement and denial that their loved one could ever hurt someone. You don't know him like I know him. He could never do this. There's a mistake. Wait till the truth comes out. Etc. When the truth does come out, they usually get really quiet. Those are the normal (or somewhat normal) people.

The Tsarnaev parents and Uncle Ruslan and, to a lesser degree, Todashev's father, responded differently. Right away, they were pointing fingers at everyone else. It's a setup. My son could never commit a crime. (Demonstrably false.) It's almost like they go right into counter-accusation mode because they already have a lot of practice at it? See also Lindsay Lohan and family.

UnCIAle Ruslan said his nephews were losers.

As for the Tsarnaevs' parents and aunt and Todashev's father, I just don't see what you are seeing. How are they supposed to act if they really feel that their sons or nephews are incapable of mass murder? If you view this through the lens that these kids are guilty, I can see how you might feel that their relatives' "acts" are overwrought, like those of parents of bullies who cry victim. But if you assume that the kids are indeed innocent, I don't see what is at all abnormal about the kids' relatives (or friends) stating as much to the press.

I don't think that Todashev's getting into a fight over a parking space or Tamerlan's being charged with hitting his ex-girlfriend demand that their parents admit that it is very possible that their sons committed mass murder. I mean, one of my brothers once got into a bar fight, and I don't believe him at all capable of mass murder. If the police charged my brother with mass murder, I would proclaim my complete belief in his innocence unless and until either he admitted his guilt to me personally or somebody presented me with some clear forensic evidence of his guilt.

[compared2what?]

A typical response is that of a friend of mine, "If the cops shot him, they must have had good reason."

Somewhat OT, but the cops in Philly shot seven people last week:

Philadelphia police shot three suspects on Wednesday, bringing the number of officer-involved in shootings in the past week to seven.

Four of those suspects, including one on Wednesday, were killed.

The Wednesday shootings were part of a violent 24 hours in the city. Late Wednesday and early this morning, two other homicides and at least three other non-fatal shootings were reported throughout Philadelphia.

The most recent officer-involved shooting happened late Wednesday, when police shot a suspect who refused to drop his weapon in Germantown at about 10 p.m. The incident happened on Wayne Avenue near Berkeley Street, and the suspect, who was not identified, was pronounced dead at Albert Einstein Medical Center.

The fatal shooting by police was the third officer-involved shooting in Philadelphia on Wednesday. The suspects in the other shootings, which happened on the 400 block of West York Street and the 5600 block of Chester Avenue, both survived.

Those shootings came the day after Commissioner Charles Ramsey asked the U.S. Department of Justice to review the police department's use of deadly force.

Guess they weren't too worried about that prospect.

(LINK)

[pianoblues]

My preface; I'm not submitting this article to RI because of it's potential to be politically inflammatory, but because it asks some bigger questions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... licy-obama

The shooting of Ibragim Todashev: is the lawlessness of Obama's drone policy coming home?

Once a state gets used to abusing the rights of foreigners in distant lands, it's almost inevitable it will import the habit



George Monbiot

The Guardian, Monday 3 June 2013 20.50 BST


Illustration by Daniel Pudles
‘Under the Obama doctrine, innocent until proved guilty has mutated to innocent until proved dead.' Illustration by Daniel Pudles

Did the FBI execute Ibragim Todashev? He appears to have been shot seven times while being interviewed at home in Orlando, Florida, about his connection to one of the Boston bombing suspects. Among the shots was the assassin's hallmark: a bullet to the back of the head. What kind of an interview was it?

An irregular one. There was no lawyer present. It was not recorded. By the time Todashev was shot, he had apparently been interrogated by three agents for five hours. And then? Who knows? First, we were told, he lunged at them with a knife. How he acquired it, five hours into a police interview, was not explained. How he posed such a threat while recovering from a knee operation also remains perplexing.

At first he drew the knife while being interviewed. Then he acquired it during a break from the interview. Then it ceased to be a knife and became a sword, then a pipe, then a metal pole, then a broomstick, then a table, then a chair. In one account all the agents were in the room at the time of the attack; in another, all but one had mysteriously departed, leaving the remaining officer to face his assailant alone.

If – and it remains a big if – this was an extrajudicial execution, it was one of hundreds commissioned by US agencies since Barack Obama first took office. The difference in this case is that it took place on American soil. Elsewhere, suspects are bumped off without even the right to the lawyerless interview Ibragim Todashev was given.

In his speech two days after Todashev was killed, President Obama maintained that "our commitment to constitutional principles has weathered every war". But he failed to explain which constitutional principles permit him to authorise the killing of people in nations with which the US is not at war. When his attorney general, Eric Holder, tried to do so last year, he got himself into a terrible mess, ending with the extraordinary claim that "'due process' and 'judicial process' are not one and the same … the constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process". So what is due process if it doesn't involve the courts? Whatever the president says it is?

Er, yes. In the same speech Obama admitted for the first time that four American citizens have been killed by US drone strikes in other countries. In the next sentence, he said: "I do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any US citizen – with a drone, or a shotgun – without due process." This suggests he believes that the legal rights of those four people had been respected before they were killed.

Given that they might not even have known that they were accused of the alleged crimes for which they were executed, that they had no opportunities to contest the charges, let alone be granted judge or jury, this suggests that the former law professor's interpretation of constitutional rights is somewhat elastic. If Obama and his nameless advisers say someone is a terrorist, he stands convicted and can be put to death.

Left hanging in his speech is the implication that non-US citizens may be killed without even the pretence of due process. The many hundreds killed by drone strikes (who, civilian or combatant, retrospectively become terrorists by virtue of having been killed in a US anti-terrorism operation) are afforded no rights even in principle.

As the process of decision-making remains secret, as the US government refuses even to acknowledge – let alone to document or investigate – the killing by its drones of people who patently had nothing to do with terrorism or any other known crime, miscarriages of justice are not just a risk emerging from the deployment of the president's kill list. They are an inevitable outcome. Under the Obama doctrine, innocent until proved guilty has mutated to innocent until proved dead.

The president made his rejection of habeas corpus and his assumption of a godlike capacity for judgment explicit later in the speech, while discussing another matter. How, he wondered, should the US deal with detainees in Guantánamo Bay "who we know have participated in dangerous plots or attacks, but who cannot be prosecuted – for example because the evidence against them has been compromised or is inadmissible in a court of law"? If the evidence has been compromised or is inadmissible, how can he know that they have participated? He can suspect, he can allege, but he cannot know until his suspicion has been tested in a court of law.

Global powers have an antisocial habit of bringing their work back home. The British government imported some of the methods it used against its colonial subjects to suppress domestic protests and strikes. Once an administrative class becomes accustomed to treating foreigners as if they have no rights, and once the domestic population broadly accepts their justifications, it is almost inevitable that the habit migrates from one arena into another. If hundreds of people living abroad can be executed by American agents on no more than suspicion, should we be surprised if residents of the United States began to be treated the same way?

• A fully referenced version of this article can be found at monbiot.comTwitter: @GeorgeMonbiot

[Iamwhomiam]

Any of us can surmise whatever story we dream-up about the brothers and put it forth as being more likely than another's. Doesn't mean any are putting forth an actual portrayal of what actually transpired. Maybe he was the naked guy and he was killed awhile ago, and his friend and girlfriend pawns of the originators of this scheme?

stickdog wrote:

If the police charged my brother with mass murder, I would proclaim my complete belief in his innocence unless and until either he admitted his guilt to me personally or somebody presented me with some clear forensic evidence of his guilt.

Undoubtedly. But you know your brother and not this fellow. I trust your brother is not trained in mixed martial arts? Were he a well accomplished mm artist with deadly capabilities which you had previously seen him demonstrate in matches, wouldn't the slightest doubt then enter your mind? Discounted at first and then again a haunting possibility?

[pianoblues]

Any of us can surmise whatever story we dream-up about the brothers and put it forth as being more likely than another's. Doesn't mean any are putting forth an actual portrayal of what actually transpired. Maybe he was the naked guy and he was killed awhile ago, and his friend and girlfriend pawns of the originators of this scheme?

Agree with 1st and 2nd sentence, and even the third is plausible as much as anything else. Not infrequently have women been used as agents for the other side...The folks, however, that were there and COULD offer any coherency as witnesses, aren't- instead are deliberately choosing not to; ie. a knife, a sword, a table, a chair, pole, broomstick, text message? If non law enforcement witnesses doled out so many inconsistent accounts, they'd immediately be suspect....double standards of law enforcement appear extremely dodgy at best; they don't even say what type, or how many agents were there as far as I know. Are we supposed to trust law enforcement blindly? beh, if it was my son, bf, exhusband, friend, sports associate, co-national, I'd like some sort of consistent explanation why they ended up a bullet ridden cadaver after a security questioning...they wanted to win his confidence through agreeing to interview him in his own home but obviously knew of his past arrests for aggression but took few measures to prevent having to put a bullet through the top of his head?