The Washington Post with the scoop:

A Florida prosecutor has ruled that an FBI agent was justified in using deadly force when he shot and killed a Chechen man connected to two brothers accused of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombing. Law enforcement officials said that Ibragim Todashev, 27, a mixed-martial-arts fighter, attacked the agent with a metal pole during an interview at his Orlando apartment on May 22. …

The investigation’s conclusion seemingly brings to an end a 10-month push by Todashev’s family and several civil rights organizations for more information about the shooting.

State Attorney Jeff Ashton’s final report isn’t set to be released until Tuesday, but unnamed law enforcement officials have already leaked the major takeaway to the Post, and subsequently to the Boston Globe and the Associated Press. Of course, given these are unnamed sources we’re dealing with, we should probably wait to see the final report before we get ahead of ourselves. It was unnamed law enforcement officials last year, after all, who were quick to paint a number of different pictures of the scene in the room in the moments before the agent opened fire. Among them, that Todashev was unarmed, that he was brandishing a knife, and that he was carrying a pipe or maybe a broomstick.



The state report is the only independent investigation into the shooting of Todashev. The FBI, meanwhile, has reportedly already cleared the agent of wrongdoing, and a second federal investigation by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is expected to come to the same conclusion, according to the Post. The FBI report, which has not yet been made public, would keep alive a more than two-decade streak of the agency finding its agents justified in fatal shootings. That’s either an extraordinary track record, or an unbelievable one.



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