The Florida chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR-FL) today sent letters to the Department of Justice, the Orange County State Attorney's Office, and the FBI demanding answers regarding the FBI agent who shot and killed Ibragim Todashev in Orlando nearly a year ago. Todashev was the 27-year-old Chechan-American man who lived in Orlando and was a friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, considered to be the mastermind of the April 15, 2013 Boston Marathon bombing attack that killed three people and injured more than 260. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with Boston police officers four days after the attack; his brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is awaiting trial on charges linked to the bombing and faces the threat of execution if he is convicted. Activists with CAIR and other groups have questioned the somewhat bizarre shooting and killing of Todashev in his Orlando apartment last year by an FBI agent. The FBI claims that during the interview Todashev, a mixed martial arts fighter with a criminal record, turned violent, flinging a tabletop at the FBI agent and brandishing a metal pole at the trooper. The FBI agent then fired seven shots at him. In March, a Florida prosecutor found the shooting of Todashev to be justified.
But in a major piece of investigative reporting, the Boston Globe today reported that the agent, named Aaron McFarlane, had a "brief and troubled past" at the Oakland Police Department. In four years there, he took the Fifth at a police corruption trial and was the subject of two police brutality lawsuits and four Internal Affairs investigations. He retired from the department in 2004 at age 31, where he retired with a pension of more than $52,000 annually for the rest of his life.
Then the FBI hired him.
Somewhat incredibly, the Florida prosecutor who exonerated him in the killing of Todashev back in March, Jeffrey L. Ashton, said he never interviewed McFarlane during his investigation, because the FBI would not permit Ashton to record the interview.
Needless to say, CAIR and other organizations and people — like Todashev's father — are demanding answers.
The allegations made against McFarlane during his time with the Oakland PD include falsifying police reports; lying under oath; battering and falsely imprisoning an individual; making false arrests; violating the rights of suspects; engaging in assault with a weapon; and engaging in aggravated battery.
At a press conference held at CAIR's offices in Tampa last August, Abdulabaki Todashev, Ibragim's father, said of his son, "He was very good boy," speaking through a translator. "I hope and pray that no mother or father will have to endure what I'm going through right now. My son was a very good boy, and he is innocent and he was killed."