CAIR-FL Calls for Investigation into Ibragim Todashev’s Killing
Last Thursday afternoon, the President of the United States said this:
For the record, I do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any U.S. citizen — with a drone, or with a shotgun — without due process, nor should any President deploy armed drones over U.S. soil.
Less than 40 hours earlier, an FBI Agent shot and killed Ibragim Todashev during a 5-hour interrogation with at least 4 other law enforcement officers. As I noted yesterday, law enforcement sources now concede that Todashev was unarmed when he was killed. According to a lawyer from CAIR representing his family, Todashev was shot 7 times, including once in the head.
An ethnically Chechen Russian, Todashev was not a US citizen. Though he reportedly obtained his Green Card in February and as such became a US person for spying and law enforcement purposes.
While the FBI claims that Todashev was in the process of confessing to involvement, with Boston Marathon killer Tamerlan Tsarnaev, in a 2011 triple murder in Waltham, MA, newly revealed details –such as that the other law enforcement officers had left the room when Todashev was shot — suggests they were pressuring Todashev to confess and/or (I suspect) turn informant and did or said something that made him either react badly or feel the need to defend himself. Given those details, no credible press should report without far more proof — as many still are — that the dead man was willingly confessing or had confessed at all.
Now, the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling on DOJ’s Civil Rights division to investigate whether excessive force was used.
Recall that the MI chapter of CAIR conducted an extensive investigation of another Muslim (in that case, a US citizen) deprived of due process by quick FBI shotguns, Imam Abdullah Luqman, and is now suing for wrongful death.
Presumably, the FBI will maintain, as they have already claimed, that Todashev attacked the FBI Agent (who, according to reports, had been left alone with Todashev by the others), and he became an imminent threat to that now-exposed FBI Agent’s safety.
You know? Imminent threat? The same broad word game we use to target people with drones?
Yeah, his existence was an imminent threat … just as the sword of damocles was an imminent threat. Todashev knew too much, Might ‘leak’ at any time. The others left the hitman alone with him so they’d be ‘plausibly’ innocent of his murder. The cops are the crooks. Counterterror is terror. We’re in the midst of the ‘accumulated evil of the whole’, immanent, Bush/Obama reign of serial crimes against peace.
1. Did the FBI agent from Boston who shot Ibragim Todashev know Todashev in Boston?
2. Did this FBI agent from Boston also interview Tamerlan Tsarnaev?
3. Did this FBI agent also close the Tsarnaev file?
4. Did this FBI agent have contact with Tsarnaev after closing the file?
5. With Todashev?
6. Was this FBI agent present during the shoot out at the boat of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?
7. Did this FBI agent fire his gun during the boat shoot out?
8. Did this FBI agent act to keep the shooting going during the boat shoot out?
9. Did this FBI agent meet or have contact with Todashev by himself in Florida prior to the shooting?
10. Did this FBI agent try to recruit Todashev in Boston?
11. Did Todashev refuse to be recruited in Boston?
12. Did the FBI agent have contact with Tsarnaev to encourage him to do something in Boston?
13. Was the FBI agent trying to be a hero by running Tsarnaev and others on the side and then planned to uncover the plot before anything happened, but it got away from him?
14. Then the FBI agent decided to close up loose ends in Florida?
Here’s the follow-up on the Pravda story that had names and dates wrong concerning the death of two FBI counter-terrorism agents in Virginia earlier this month:
http://hamptonroads.com/2013/05/medical-examiner-confirms-fall-killed-2-fbi-agents
I might buy that the one agent was threatened, but WTF did the LEOs leave the room at the same time? I thought standard practice was to have two present at all times, for, among other reasons, preventing just exactly this kind of thing from happening.
Presumably the FBI agent from Boston was in charge and ordered the other cops to leave the room.
At close range he shot an unarmed man 7 times?
Bang – not dead
Bang – not dead yet
Bang – still not dead
Bang – still not dead yet
Bang – yet still not dead yet
Bang – yet still not yet dead yet
Bang – WTF?
Wonder what the neighbors thought as the slugs started coming through the walls, floors or ceilings? This may be the best argument yet for stricter gun controls. Keep ’em out of the hands of the FBI.
@lefty665: Also,
Bang: 4 guys outside keep smoking their cigarette
Bang: 4 guys outside keep smoking their cigarette
Bang: 4 guys outside keep smoking their cigarette
Bang: 4 guys outside keep smoking their cigarette
Bang: 4 guys outside keep smoking their cigarette
Bang: 4 guys outside stub out their cigarette
Bang: 4 guys outside bust in and stop the shooting
@Mark Tenney: You might consider possibility that this FBI guy is actually either Hostage Rescue Team (AKA Special Forces in FBI garb) or High Value Interrogation Group (AKA Special Forces in FBI garb).
@emptywheel:
Looks like almost a year and a half ago the FBI changed its training to emphasize close quarters encounters to include: 3 shots within 3 yards in 3 seconds, 80% hit rate. The shooter should have been through it by now.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2013/01/05/fbi-firearms-training/1811053/
http://blog.hsoi.com/2013/03/30/fbi-pistol-qualification-course-an-evolution/
In 2011 the FBI issued an RFP for up to 5 years and $75,000,000 worth of high velocity, hollow point .40 S&W ammunition that is banned by the Geneva Conventions. From that RFP:
C. 6.1 The service projectile shall be a jacketed hollow point or equivalent. The bullet shall not be of a full metal jacket design.
C.6.5 Bullets shall achieve the expansion, penetration, weight retention, and depth when fired through intervening barriers, in accordance with the specifications and requirements of the Technical Evaluation Plan.
C.6.7 The service projectile shall expand when striking muscle tissue or ballistic gelatin in accordance with the specifications and requirements of the Technical Evaluation Plan.
https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=2ce090dc0852388008d45538e894eadf&tab=core&_cview=1
7 of those puppies at close range at an unarmed man from an agent trained in close quarters shooting? Really? The FBI better take his gun away for at least 3 reasons.
@emptywheel: Yes, that is possible. My understanding is the FBI agent who shot Todashev is from the Boston FBI office.
@john francis lee: A bit like Indonesia in the Time of Living Dangerously and the long, dark aftermath.
Todashev knew too much and was permanently silenced. As to what he knew too much about one can only guess at this point, but the nexis of international drug smuggling, terrorism and involvement by intelligence agencies has long been a reality that TPTB wish to be kept secret.
@emptywheel: I do not buy for one second that a single agent was left alone in the room, I will bet good money that is trying to protect others from bad shoot liability and consequences.
@bmaz: It’s possible. THough given the tensions among MA’s law enforcement agencies, I think it possible the MA cops, at least, were told to leave.
Todashev’s father is talking to the media in Moscow. He’s saying six shots to the torso and one in the back of the head. With photos taken by a friend of his son, at the morgue.
@P J Evans: Yes–same photos CAIR is relying on to make their claims. Though they haven’t said shot in the back of the head, so I’m more cautious about that claim, as they seem to have also talked to the FBI.
@emptywheel:
This one has two of the photos being shown at the same time; you can see that the visible head wound is the upper back left side of the skull, almost on top, and a difficult spot to explain hitting. (They’re clearly post-autopsy pics.)
@P J Evans: Ah, thanks. Very helpful.
@P J Evans: Wow, those torso shots are kind of all over for close range, aren’t they?
@emptywheel: Actually, CAIR did say that he was shot in the back of the head:
@bmaz:
“@emptywheel: I do not buy for one second that a single agent was left alone in the room, I will bet good money that is trying to protect others from bad shoot liability and consequences.”
You know, that’s a very good point. An FBI agent is a LEO anywhere in US (and any activity in the line of duty is a matter for federal courts, not state courts), the two Mass. state troopers are LEO in Mass but not in Florida, which is OK since there’s a workaround.
What’s supposed to happen is local or state cops working with Feds are sworn in as Special Deputy US Marshals. This used to be easy peasy, in fact FBI agents were routinely sworn in as Special Deputy Marshals before the Bureau’s jurisdiction was expanded by Congress, but like with everything else, the red tape has grown relentlessly.
http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/title3/usa00132.htm
It could be– never looked at the case law– that someone working closely with the federales like this is treated like a Fed by the courts, or whether the tin star in hand is what counts. The moral of the story, every LEO, local state or federal, should be issued Google Glass with their side iron. With modern technology, there’s absolutely no reason this shooting is not available for video replay.
@beowulf: I should think this case illustrates the reason why not, and with dazzling, crystal clarity.
@emptywheel:
It does raise some questions about what the hell actually happened, including what the actual range was.
Great questions, Mark Tenney.
So little of this has made any sense at all to me since I can’t see what the motives were to kill this guy. At least until I considered your questions, and some of the other recent posts about possibly entrapped would-be terr’ists who mostly seem like a bunch of losers. Maybe the feds were working with these guys to trap someone else (or the plural of someone else) or to trap these “Chechnyans” on more headline grabbing charges than what they had on them to date, and then the losers went off script and bombed the marathon. I still don’t see how that quite fits, but I’m starting to suspect the real story is what the feds knew about these Chechens and what contacts they had with them before the bombing happened. And needless to say, I doubt we’ll ever get anything like a credible explanation.
@guest:
Entrapment has been a favored technique for decades, especially when the plant can be transferred out of the area (or otherwise hidden from view) before the victim goes to trial.