The FBI has cleared a federal agent in Boston in the fatal shooting of a friend of accused Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev last year in Orlando, according to two law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation. The same two officials said Friday that a Florida prosecutor conducting a separate investigation into the death of Ibragim Todashev, 27, during an interrogation last May had also concluded that the agent committed no wrongdoing. But the prosecutor quickly denied that he had made a final decision.
The reports on Friday intensified frustration among those closely watching the case. Almost a year after the slaying, FBI and state officials have not said whether Todashev was armed or provided details of the alleged violent confrontation that caused an agent to shoot and kill him in his own apartment. Investigators had been interrogating him about his friendship with Tsarnaev.
On Friday, Todashev's supporters and civil liberties groups complained about the pace of the investigation and urged investigators to release their records to the public. Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, said, "We still don't know what happened. Unless we have the documents that support those findings, mere conclusory statements aren't really going to satisfy the public concern."
Hassan Shibly, executive director of CAIR in Florida, said he wanted to read the full reports. However, groups have repeatedly raised concerns about the FBI's internal inquiry because documents obtained by The New York Times showed that the bureau rarely, if ever, faults agents for shootings.
Todashev's family has insisted that he did nothing wrong and that recent knee surgery had left him too weak to attack the armed agent. They have also pointed out that Todashev had voluntarily submitted to FBI questioning before agents showed up at his apartment that final time.
But Todashev had fighting skills and a violent criminal record. The mixed-martial arts fighter was arrested in 2010 in Boston for a road-rage episode and again in Florida, weeks before he was killed, for allegedly beating a man in a fight over a parking space.
Media reports have said that Todashev was ready to sign a confession implicating himself and Tamerlan Tsarnaev in an unsolved triple homicide.