An FBI "incident review" team from the nation's capitol is in Orlando today, MyFoxOrlando reports, a day after a Russian man acquainted with Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was shot and killed by an FBI agent.
Evidence gathering continues at the condominium complex where Ibragim Todashev was shot early Wednesday.
In this May 4, 2013 police mug provided by the Orange County Corrections Department in Orlando, Fla., shows Ibragim Todashev after his arrest for aggravated battery in Orlando. Todashev, who was being questioned in Orlando by authorities in the Boston bombing probe, was fatally shot Wednesday, May 22, 2013, FBI officials said. (Credit: AP)
FBI officials first indicated that Todashev, 27, lunged at an agent with a knife during questioning about Tsarnaev and an unsolved 2011 triple homicide in the Boston suburb of Waltham. (TheBlaze reports today that mounting evidence links Tsarnaev to the murders.) The agent, the FBI said, shot Todashev due to "imminent threat."
ORLANDO, FL - MAY 22: A Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) evidence response team takes out evidence from an apartment where a suspected friend of the Boston bombers was shot and killed by FBI on May 22, 2013 in Orlando, Florida. (Credit: Getty Images)
Now, however, the official account of what happened is no longer clear, The Associated Press reported.
Sources told Fox 25 News in Boston that Todashev, a Russian national living legally in Florida, was about to sign a confession linking him to the Waltham slayings just before the shooting took place."I heard a couple of loud bangs and saw a couple of cop cars riding by," said Jared Morse, who lives in the area. "They wouldn't let anyone out to see anything or anything like that, so they made us go back inside."
Khusen Taraman, who practiced mixed-martial arts with Todashev, said that since the Boston Marathon bombings in April, they had been followed and questioned by the FBI. Todashev and Tsarnaev were MMA fighters, and both once lived in the Boston metro area.
"He couldn't believe it," Taraman said of Todashev. "He thought they were just going to question him or, worst case, arrest him for some time until investigation was over."
A Central Florida pro MMA fighter said he coached Todashev in 2011 for seven months...then Todashev stopped coming to workouts.
"I'm not exactly sure what happened to him. He just stopped coming," Bruce Connors said, adding that he was surprised by Todashev's death.
"He never gave any of those kinds of characteristics to me, obviously, or I wouldn't have had anything to do with him."
MyFoxOrlando reports that Todashev was arrested for aggravated battery after getting into a fight over a parking spot with a 54-year-old man and his 35-year-old son at Orlando's Premium Outlets mall earlier in May. The 35-year-old man was hospitalized with a split upper lip and several teeth knocked out, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Office.
In addition, MyFoxOrlando reports that Todashev was charged with reckless operation of a motor vehicle, disorderly conduct, and civil infractions after a 2010 car crash, according to the Suffolk County (Mass.) District Attorney's Office. A spokesman said Todashev was seen arguing and shouting threats at occupants of one of the involved vehicles. The charges were later dismissed.
Check out the news report from MyFoxOrlando:
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