This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/us/officer-involved-in-shooting-of-man-tied-to-tsarnaev.html

The article has changed 16 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 12 Version 13
Deadly End to F.B.I. Queries on Tsarnaev and a Triple Killing Deadly End to F.B.I. Queries on Tsarnaev and a Triple Killing
(about 4 hours later)
BOSTON — A man in Orlando, Fla., who was being interviewed early Wednesday by law enforcement officers about his ties to the deceased Boston Marathon bombing suspect was fatally shot after he tried to attack the officers, according to a federal law enforcement official. The man admitted that he and the Boston suspect had been involved in a triple murder, the authorities said. One lingering mystery in the investigation of the Boston Marathon bombings is whether the dead suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, played a role in the unsolved murders of three men, one of them his best friend, in a Boston suburb in 2011.
The officers — who included an F.B.I. agent from the Boston field office and two Massachusetts state troopers — were questioning the man, Ibragim Todashev, about whether he had played a role in the murder of three men on Sept. 11, 2011, in Waltham, Mass., where the victims were found with their throats slit and sprinkled with marijuana. That question deepened early Wednesday when a man in Orlando, Fla., who was being interviewed by at least one F.B.I. agent and other investigators, implicated himself and Mr. Tsarnaev in those murders, and then was fatally shot after he apparently tried to assault the agent, two senior law enforcement officials said.
The officers had been interviewing Mr. Todashev in his apartment for some time when he tried to attack them, the official said. Investigators said they initially believed Mr. Todashev had used a knife in the attack, but in the afternoon, they said that it was unclear what he was holding when he violently attacked an agent. The man, Ibragim Todashev, had been speaking for two hours in his apartment to officials from the Massachusetts State Police and the F.B.I. about Mr. Tsarnaev and the Sept. 11, 2011, murders in Waltham, Mass., when he suddenly grabbed an object and tried to attack the agent, one official said.
The shooting occurred in a sprawling condominium complex in Orlando less than a mile from an entrance to Universal Studios, where many of the residents work. On Wednesday, several streets in the complex were blocked off by federal and local law enforcement officials. “He exploded and leapt at him,” said the official, who said the F.B.I. agent sustained minor injuries that required stitches.
“The investigators were working on the theory that he and Tamerlan” had played a role in the murders, the official said, referring to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the marathon bombing suspect who died after a confrontation with police in the aftermath of the attack. One of the Waltham victims was a friend of Mr. Tsarnaev. A second law enforcement official said the shooting occurred after Mr. Todashev had admitted his role in the killings and had also implicated Mr. Tsarnaev. The official said he had begun writing out a statement when he asked to take a break.
According to a senior law enforcement official, Mr. Todashev implicated himself and Mr. Tsarnaev in the Waltham murders. “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 second official said. “I don’t know what triggered him, and he goes after the agent.”
“He had only said it orally but had not signed anything,” the official said. “But that was where it appeared to be heading,” the official said, referring to Mr. Todashev’s signing a written statement about the murders. The official said Mr. Todashev had something in his hand, “a knife or a pipe or something.”
It was not clear whether Mr. Todashev had said why they had committed the murders. Investigators, who are seeking to determine how Mr. Tsarnaev made money, have been looking into whether Mr. Todashev and Mr. Tsarnaev were drug dealers, the official said. It was not certain who, or how many officers, had fired on Mr. Todashev. Nor was it clear why, with at least three law enforcement officials in the room, deadly force was used on someone without a firearm in his hands. Asked, one law enforcement official said: “If somebody jumps on you and you have a gun, and you don’t do something, the gun will quickly come into play.”
The official added: “They had been interviewing him for a couple of hours at the time that he attacked them. It was not a sudden occurrence that had happened upon them entering the apartment.” Mr. Todashev’s alleged oral admission and his subsequent death marked a bizarre twist in investigators’ attempts to determine whether Mr. Tsarnaev participated in the gruesome killings in Waltham on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. The throats of his close friend, Brendan Mess, and two other men were slashed and marijuana was spread over their bodies.
The F.B.I. agent sustained minor injuries requiring stitches, the official said. The official said that the authorities had spoken to Mr. Todashev at least twice since the April 15 bombings, which killed three people and injured about 200. The second official described what in effect appears to be a drug robbery.
The authorities investigating the Waltham murders are seeking to determine whether the police missed an opportunity to thwart the marathon attacks. They have not ruled out that Mr. Tsarnaev’s younger brother, Dzhokhar, played a role in the murders. “So Tamerlan says they have dope, they rip them off. Tamerlan says, ‘They can identify me, so let’s kill them.’ And they kill them,” the official said.
The mother of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects said in a telephone interview that her older son knew Mr. Todashev. If Mr. Tsarnaev was involved, then the murders may shed light on the crucial question of when he became violent and unstable, and whether that was before he traveled to his homeland in the North Caucasus region of Russia last year.
The mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, said Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Mr. Todashev saw each other regularly in Boston, though they were not particularly close, and that Mr. Todashev had moved to Florida about two years ago. The recent focus on Mr. Tsarnaev’s possible involvement in the Waltham murders has also raised questions about whether authorities in Massachusetts missed an opportunity to thwart the marathon bombings by not adequately pursuing Mr. Tsarnaev as a murder suspect.
“Tamerlan said he was a good guy, he said he was a boxer or some other kind of athlete,” she said from Dagestan. She said she had broken down when she heard the news on Wednesday. There was no indication on Wednesday why Mr. Todashev — who, like the Tsarnaevs, was an ethnic Chechen — would have implicated himself and Mr. Tsarnaev in the murders. Investigators, who are seeking to determine how Mr. Tsarnaev made money, have been looking into whether Mr. Todashev and Mr. Tsarnaev were drug dealers, one of the law enforcement officials said.
Mr. Todashev had not signed a written statement about the Waltham murders before he was fatally shot. “He had only said it orally but had not signed anything,” said the first official. “But that was where it appeared to be heading.”
The shooting occurred in a sprawling condominium complex in Orlando, less than a mile from an entrance to Universal Studios, where many of the residents work. On Wednesday, several streets in the complex were blocked off by federal and local law enforcement officials.
The law enforcement official said that the authorities had spoken to Mr. Todashev at least twice since the April 15 bombings in Boston, which killed three people and injured more than 200.
Mr. Todashev and Mr. Tsarnaev saw each other regularly in Boston before Mr. Todashev moved to Florida about two years ago, though they were not particularly close, Mr. Tsarnaev’s mother said in an interview in Russia.
“Tamerlan said he was a good guy, he said he was a boxer or some other kind of athlete,” Zubeidat Tsarnaeva said by telephone from Dagestan. She said she had broken down when she heard the news on Wednesday.
“Now another boy has left this life,” she said. “Why are they killing these children without any trial or investigation?”“Now another boy has left this life,” she said. “Why are they killing these children without any trial or investigation?”
Since the attacks, the F.B.I. and state and local law enforcement officials in Boston have sought to interview friends and others who knew the Tsarnaev brothers. The triple murder stunned the community of Waltham, 10 miles west of Boston. The police were called to Mr. Mess’s home on the afternoon of Sept. 12, 2011, after witnesses said a woman had rushed out screaming about dead bodies covered in marijuana, and blood everywhere.
Investigators want to know how the brothers were radicalized, and they want to determine if there were accomplices. Mr. Mess was strong and would have been difficult to subdue, and Mr. Tsarnaev was one of the most accomplished amateur boxers in Boston, a heavyweight. Some in nearby Cambridge who knew Mr. Mess and the Tsarnaevs also grew suspicious of Mr. Tsarnaev when he did not show up for Mr. Mess’s funeral, despite being a close friend.
The F.B.I. has also focused on Chechens who may have ties to extremists in Russia. Before the attacks, the bureau had not thought that they were a significant threat in the United States.

Michael S. Schmidt reported from Waltham, Mass., and William K. Rashbaum and Richard A. Oppel Jr. from New York. Reporting was contributed by Ellen Barry from Moscow, Serge F. Kovaleski and Deborah Sontag from New York, Jeffrey Billman from Orlando, Fla., and Scott Shane from Washington.

As part of those efforts, the F.B.I. has questioned many members of the small community of ethnic Chechens in the United States. Since April 29, agents have repeatedly interviewed a Chechen refugee and former rebel fighter, Musa Khadzhimuratov, of Manchester, N.H. Tamerlan Tsarnaev used a firing range in Manchester to practice shooting and bought fireworks in New Hampshire to extract the explosive powder used in the marathon bombs.
Mr. Khadzhimuratov, 36, and his wife, Madina, 32, say they had only brief social visits with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, including one a few weeks before the bombing. They said they did not know about his purchase of fireworks or guns and had no hint that he was plotting the Boston attack.
Some advocates for the Chechen community have expressed concern that Russian intelligence officers might be steering the F.B.I. to target Chechens in the United States who are hostile to Russia but have nothing to do with terrorism.

Ellen Barry contributed reporting from Moscow, Scott Shane contributed from Washington and Jeffrey Billman contributed from Orlando, Fla.