The Florida man connected to an alleged Boston Marathon bomber was unarmed when he was shot and killed by an FBI agent earlier this month, ABC News and other outlets reported Wednesday.
ABC cited “law enforcement sources” who said that 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev was not armed when he was killed on May 22 in his Orlando, Fla. apartment during questioning about his relationship with deceased bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Original reports of the incident indicated that Todashev attacked the agent with a knife. Sources told ABC that a samuarai sword present in Todashev’s apartment may have led to the erroneous reports.
Officials were questioning Todashev about an unsolved 2011 triple murder in Massachusetts in which Tsarnaev is suspected of playing a role. Todashev was allegedly on the verge of signing a statement confessing his involvement in the murder when things took a violent turn.
The FBI issued a statement Wednesday regarding the deadly incident, via ABC:
“The FBI is conducting a review of the May 22, 2013 shooting of Ibragim Todashev, 27, which occurred at Todashev’s residence, at 6022 Peregrine Avenue, Orlando, Fla. The FBI’s shooting incident review team interviews witnesses and gathers information regarding the shooting incident for presentation to a Shooting Incident Review Group (SIRG), which consists of members from the FBI and the Department of Justice. The SIRG examines all of the information and determines the reasonableness of the application of deadly force in accordance with the Department of Justice’s Deadly Force Policy and the law. While this internal review process is occurring, we cannot comment regarding investigative details.
“The FBI takes very seriously any shooting incidents involving our agents and as such we have an effective, time-tested process for addressing them internally. The review process is thorough and objective and conducted as expeditiously as possible under the circumstances.”
