Widow Angry FBI Agent Was Cleared In Fatal Shooting Of Ibragim Todashev
BOSTON (CBS/AP) - An FBI review has cleared the agent who shot Ibragim Todashev last year, CBS News reported Friday. Todashev, 27, was killed in Orlando, Florida in May while FBI agents and others questioned him about his friendship with suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
Officials originally said Todashev lunged at an agent with a knife. They later said it was no longer clear what happened.
Todashev's widow spoke to WBZ-TV exclusively by phone from Russia.
"No. I don't believe it," Reni Manukyan said of the report. "Besides that, there were so many different versions of what happened. They had released so many different things that he was with a gun, with a knife, with a grate, with a broomstick, with a chair."
An official with knowledge of the situation told CBS News that an FBI internal review cleared the FBI agent who shot Todashev. The agent has not been identified.
"For them to admit themselves that yes we killed somebody and we were wrong I don't think that will ever happen and that goes for Ibragim's case as well," Manukyan says.
Florida State attorney Jeff Ashton said in a statement Thursday that he plans to release his official report on the incident Tuesday morning.
According to CBS News, Ashton is expected to have the same findings as the FBI in the shooting.
Ashton met with Todashev's family in August. Shortly after that he said he would review the circumstances that led to the shooting.
Todashev allegedly told investigators that he and Tsarnaev had been involved in a triple murder in Waltham in September 2011.
The New York Times reports in about 150 FBI shootings since 1993, about 70 of them fatal, not one agent has been found at fault in internal reviews. Former Boston Police commissioner and WBZ analyst Ed Davis says there's a good reason for that
"In 99 percent of the cases the officer is found to be doing the right thing because they are," Davis says. "So the oversight we have through the prosecutorial arm really does make this a fair and valid process."
(TM and © Copyright 2014 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2014 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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