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MATT CONNOLLY: FBI still mum on death of Ibragim Todashev - Quincy, MA - The Patriot Ledger

MATT CONNOLLY: FBI still mum on death of Ibragim Todashev

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By Matt Connolly


On  May 22, 2013 Ibragim Todshev was involved in a homicide. He was the victim. He was in a room with at least six law enforcement officers. The homicide occurred in Florida. The State of Florida refuses to investigate it. Two of the officers were Massachusetts State Police officers. The Massachusetts State Police refuse to discuss what happened.

He was gunned down with about 7 bullets by an FBI agent. Immediately after the shooting the FBI began investigating what happened in that room. This was to be an easy one. Only cops could say what happened. No messy civilian witnesses who might not have seen correctly.

If you wanted to find out what happened, you’d ask the officers who were present and you’d know. How long would it take you to do that? An hour, two. Maybe a day or two if you were particularly inept. Then you’d know and you could tell the public what happened in that room.

We are now a month after that event. The FBI is still covering up investigating what happened. We don’t even know how many officers were present in the room. We know nothing. Even our state authorities are terrorized into not speaking about it. Such silence from our officials is something new.

Let me ask you: did you ever think they’d come a time in America when a person could be the victim of a homicide and you’d never find out how it happened, or, if you did it was only after what happened was washed, rinsed and hung out to dry? Did you ever think one cop could kill an unarmed person in a room full of cops and it'd take at least a month to learn anything about it?

How are we any different from those countries who made people they did not like disappear?  Where is our free press that is supposed to be watching out for these things?  How would you feel if it happened to someone you loved that she could be killed in a room jammed full of cops and you were told they could not tell you what happened until they massaged the facts?

The New York Times reported. that the FBI deemed its agents faultless in 150 shootings from 1993 to 2001. Ain’t that interesting?

We just happen to know about the shooting of Frankie Roche in 2004. He went on the run after getting his money for the hit on Big Al Bruno and was caught by the FBI in Florida in July 2004. He was shot in the back while prone on the ground and handcuffed. He later received a $150,000 settlement from the government.  How is it that an FBI agent is found faultless after shooting a  guy lying on the ground in the back? Only in America.

The Orlando Sentinel believes the FBI agent will not be found at fault.   Not one other newspaper in the country, least of all Boston where the 4-15-13 terrorist attack occurred, and Ibragim is alleged to have committed a triple murder, seems to care about the FBI's ineptitude.

The FBI says it “takes very seriously any shooting incidents involving our agents” according to the Orlando paper. So seriously that it must go to extraordinary lengths to stick to its first Commandment: Don't Embarrass The Family.

Most Americans sleep and yawn while the FBI ignores a call of a few for more openness and truthfulness. (We are still waiting to hear what it did after the Russians tipped them off about Tamerlan and coming up upon the two year anniversary of the investigation in to why reputed Mafia murderer Mark Rossetti was a top echelon informant.)

The FBI apparently figures it should not do anything other than what the people want. It  seems most Americans just want someone else to be concerned. That's how the government accrues more power and how the secret police in other states have come about. That this is a new America is shown clearly by the ability to have an FBI agent gun down a young man and not be required to answer for its action until it is good and ready, which could mean never.

Matt Connolly





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