Man fatally shot in Boston probe

ORLANDO, Fla. - A Chechen man was shot to death by authorities early Wednesday after he turned violent while being questioned about his ties to one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, officials said.

Ibragim Todashev, a 27-year-old mixed martial arts fighter, was gunned down at his Orlando townhouseduring a meeting with an FBI agent and two M a ssa - chusetts state troopers, authorities said. The agent was taken to a hospital with injuries thatrequired stitches but were not life-threatening.

Law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Todashev had lunged at the FBI agent after implicating himself and bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the slaying of three people in 2011. One of the officials said Todashev had begun writing a statement about his role in the killings when he asked to take a break.

“They got him to confess to the homicides, and they say, ‘Let’s write it down,’ and he starts writing it down. He goes to get a cigarette or something and then he goes off the deep end,” the official said. “I don’t know what triggered him, and he goes after the agent.”

The official said Todashevhad something in his hand, “a knife or a pipe or something.”

It was not clear who, or how many officers, had fired on Todashev. An FBI team was dispatched from Washington to review the shooting, which is standard procedure in such cases. Some of Todashev’s former roommates who were questioned said Todashev knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev from mixed martial arts fighting in Boston.

Public records show Todashev lived in Watertown, Mass., just outside Boston, last year.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, an aspiring boxer, was killed in a shootout with police days after the April 15 bombings. His younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, survived and is charged with carrying out the attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260.

Investigators have been trying to establish the scope of the plot. In addition, authorities in Massachusetts said they were investigating whether Tamerlan Tsarnaev had any connection to an unsolved 2011 slaying in the Boston suburb of Waltham, where three men were found dead in an apartment, their throats slit and marijuana sprinkled over their bodies.

One of the three victims in the murders was Brendan Mess, 25, a sparring partner of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s at Wai Kru Mixed Martial Arts in Boston. Also killed were Erik Weissman, 31 and Raphael Teken, 37.

The official said authorities had spoken to Todashev at least twice since the April 15 bombings. Former roommate Khusen Taramov said the FBI was asking questions about a conversation Todashev had with the elder bombing suspect a month before the Boston attack. Taramov said he talked to his friend Tuesday before the FBI interviewed him and recalled Todashev was worried that he’d be taken into custody.

“He said, ‘Can you take my mother and father’s number? Just take the numbers in case something happens and I get locked up,’” Taramov said.

Meanwhile, the mother of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects confirmed in a telephone interview that her older son knew Todashev.

The mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, said Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Todashev saw each other regularly in Boston, though they were not particularly close, and that Ibragim had moved to Florida about two years ago.

“Tamerlan said he was a good guy. He said he was a boxer or some other kind of athlete,” she said in a telephone interview from the Russian region of Dagestan. She said she had broken down when she heard the news Wednesday.

“Now another boy has left this life,” she said. “Why arethey killing these children without any trial or investigation?” The Tsarnaev brothers have roots in the turbulent Russian regions of Dagestan and Chechnya, which have become recruiting grounds for Islamic extremists. Investigators have said the brothers carried out the bombing in retaliation for the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Todashev was arrested earlier this month on a charge of aggravated battery after getting into a fight over a parking spot with two men - a father and son - at an Orlando shopping mall. The son was hospitalized with a split lip and several teeth knocked out, according to a sheriff’s report. Todashev claimed self-defense.

Todashev was released on $3,500 bond after his May 4 arrest. His attorney, Alain Rivas, didn’t immediately respond to a call for comment Wednesday.

Todashev also was arrested by Boston police in 2010 after a road-rage confrontation. Witnesses told police that he argued with two other drivers and cut them off with his vehicle. He yelled, “You say something about my mother, I will kill you,” according to a police report.

Information for this article was contributed by Kyle Hightower, Denise Lavoie, Pete Yost and Mike Schneider of The Associated Press; by Michael S. Schmidt, William K. Rashbaum and Richard A. Oppel Jr. of The New York Times; and by Phil Mattingly, Annie Linskey, Michael C. Bender, Erik Larson and Ilya Arkhipov of Bloomberg News.

Front Section, Pages 2 on 05/23/2013

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