The FBI has yet to explain why law enforcement shot and killed Ibragim Todashev last May. He was shot several times while being questioned in his Orlando apartment. An autopsy was conducted, but the FBI blocked its public release. An internal investigation has been completed, but it is being kept secret too.

Interest in the case persists for several reasons.

The FBI alleges that Todashev played a role in a triple murder. Those who knew the victims in that killing would like to know what actually happened to their loved ones.

Todashev also knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the Boston bombers.

Most intriguing of all is the suspicious behavior of law enforcement. Anonymous police sources have given wildly conflicting accounts of what happened just before Todashev's death: Some said he was unarmed but agitated; others said he was armed, but disagreed about the weapon. Did he reach for a gun? A samurai sword? A knife? A metal pole? A broomstick? Every news report seemed to tell a different story. The FBI wouldn't go on the record with an official version of events, and was unusually tight-lipped about the case, even as the dead man's grieving father speculated that his son was murdered. The ACLU, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and various newspaper editorial boards called for an independent investigation, in part because when the FBI investigates itself, its agents are basically always found blameless for fatal shootings.