FL - Ibragim Todashev Shooting Incident, Orlando, 22 May 2013

[i.b.nora]

Good thinking about the gym card. I still am unable to decipher the name of the street, however, it seems to start with Cour ??? and onet ???.

The initial midnight shootout took place on Laurel Street near Dexter Avenue.

The boat shootout took place in the backyard of the house on Franklin. I am just not seeing any 'C' streets in either vicinity that looks to me like the name he wrote on the card. There is a Corcoran Way in Watertown but it is some ways away.

 

[BostonMom]

Just want to jump in here and say when I first saw the address on the card the one thing that I noticed was the street. I could be totally wrong but it looked like it could be Commonwealth Ave. which around here we just call it Comm Ave. It runs through alot of cities but Watertown is not one of them. Or it may be just an address from another state!

 

[time]

Maybe it could be ...

1335 Commonwealth Ave
Apt 4

Boston, MA 02134 ‎

 

[time]

Good thinking about the gym card. I still am unable to decipher the name of the street, however, it seems to start with Cour ??? and onet ???.

The initial midnight shootout took place on Laurel Street near Dexter Avenue.

The boat shootout took place in the backyard of the house on Franklin. I am just not seeing any 'C' streets in either vicinity that looks to me like the name he wrote on the card. There is a Corcoran Way in Watertown but it is some ways away.

Unfortunately, that is an address from 2009.... so maybe he wasn't living in Watertown yet?

 

[time]

This may belong in the Waltham Murders thread, but...It appears there were two major drug busts in Waltham in 2011.

Two friends of Teken and Weissman said they believed the deaths were connected to a massive May 2011 drug bust in nearby Watertown.

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/...tamerlan-tsarnaev-tsarnaev-family-fbi-agent/2

Armenian-Americans Arrested in Major Drug Bust

A fired Watertown police officer has been charged with giving information about an international drug investigation involving millions of dollars and several other Watertown men to the people being investigated, leading to them allegedly intimidating other law enforcement officers, reports the Newton TAB.

More than $2.7 million in drug proceeds in Newton and Bedford in October 2010 was seized during the course of the investigation, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. After searching Watertown and Waltham residences on May 24, officials reportedly seized more than $700,000 in US currency, seven kilograms of gold bars, 80 pounds of marijuana, four weapons and several vehicles.

The police officer, Roberto Velasquez-Johnson, was charged with conspiring to defraud the government by impeding a drug investigation. He faces up to five years in prison to be followed by 3 years of supervised release and a fine up to $250,000 if convicted.

... Wiretaps conducted by ICE and DEA agents revealed Madarati was involved in distributing marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy, and Oxycodone in and around Watertown, according to Lavoie’s affidavit. He, Soukiasian, Sarkissian, Johnson, and others who were not identified in the affidavit, distributed wholesale quantities of marijuana that Madarati received from an organization in Quebec, according to the affidavit.

...In further wiretaps conducted Aug. 16 of last year through April 20 on cell phones, including calls and texts, belonging to Madarati, Soukiasian, and Idanjian, agents heard Madarati collecting drug money, according to the affidavit. The phone calls were in English, Arabic and Armenian

http://www.epress.am/en/2011/05/25/armenian-americans-arrested-in-major-drug-bust.html

In October, 2011, a little more than a month after the Waltham murders, there was a major drug bust in Waltham that involved a former Watertown City Councillor, Gus Bailey (ref). From The Boston Globe:

A former Watertown councilor was arrested this week and charged with trafficking marijuana at his Waltham warehouse, where police found 1,062 pot plants and 300 pounds of loose cut marijuana, worth around $2 million, along with $20,000 in cash, according to authorities.
​

 

[i.b.nora]

This may belong in the Waltham Murders thread, but...It appears there were two major drug busts in Waltham in 2011.

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/...tamerlan-tsarnaev-tsarnaev-family-fbi-agent/2

Armenian-Americans Arrested in Major Drug Bust

http://www.epress.am/en/2011/05/25/armenian-americans-arrested-in-major-drug-bust.html

The Armenian-American drug bust was mentioned and linked to in the Waltham Murders. Also I found a brief version of the case here:
http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2011/May/MadaratiSafwan.html

I think its interesting because of the involvement of the former Watertown officer but am not 'feeling' a connection to Tsarnaev, Todashev, or the triple murders.

The other case however seems like it could very easily link to the Waltham murders. Mess and Weissman had been talking about a plan to grow marijuana in a warehouse. Two weeks later, they are dead. Bailey could have seen them as encroaching on his territory. Did Bailey know Tsarnaev and or Todashev?

And, yes it probably belongs on that thread. I read the entire thread over the weekend. It is pretty much wanting for factual information.

 

[time]

The Armenian-American drug bust was mentioned and linked to in the Waltham Murders. Also I found a brief version of the case here:
http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2011/May/MadaratiSafwan.html

I think its interesting because of the involvement of the former Watertown officer but am not 'feeling' a connection to Tsarnaev, Todashev, or the triple murders.

The other case however seems like it could very easily link to the Waltham murders. Mess and Weissman had been talking about a plan to grow marijuana in a warehouse. Two weeks later, they are dead. Bailey could have seen them as encroaching on his territory. Did Bailey know Tsarnaev and or Todashev?

And, yes it probably belongs on that thread. I read the entire thread over the weekend. It is pretty much wanting for factual information.

BBM... I think one of the links I had said about the same. I don't know about the connection either off IT/TT/ZT to the Waltham murders either. Obviously, we don't have much info to go on, but I agree it would be interesting to know if Baily knew Tsarnaev and/or Todashev (or any of them). I suppose it's possible through Todashev's ex and that community? Not sure how probable that is.

The whole Waltham case is still a mystery.

I won't post it because it goes too far in my mind, but there is a far right sight claiming it couldn't be a drug deal thing and claiming it is just too apparent it is some kind of ritual murder associated with radical Islam. That author is questionable in my opinion and it's biased even though some of it is interesting.

I'm not really feeling either of these theories though... I'm just perplexed about it. I hope we get more details sooner rather than later.

When I get time, I will repost some of this in the Waltham thread.

 

[time]

Also, I wanted to say that I think Ibragim did know Tamerlan much better that his estranged wife has portrayed based on the interview with the gym owner.

 

[i.b.nora]

Also, I wanted to say that I think Ibragim did know Tamerlan much better that his estranged wife has portrayed based on the interview with the gym owner.

Yes, I agree.

 

[time]

New article on IT... I posted in the Waltham Triple Homicide thread.

Ibragim Todashev’s Father Writes Open Letter to Obama, Releases Photos Surrounding So


MA MA - Waltham Triple Murder, 12 Sept 2011 - Page 19 - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community

New photos include some of the crime scene/apartment... not LE photos.

 

[time]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/09/fbi-shooting-ibragim-todashev_n_4570152.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

The internal FBI probe into the deadly shooting of a Russian immigrant who was being interviewed in Florida in May about his links to the Boston Marathon bombing suspect is "definitely" something the bureau will release down the line, FBI Director James Comey told reporters Thursday.

..."I am eager for the report of that incident to be released. The bureau, long ago we completed our internal review of the matter," Comey said. He said the delay was due to a review at the Justice Department and with local prosecutors, which is still ongoing. Comey didn't have a timeline for when the report would be released.

"My piece of it, the internal investigation, is complete, so it is really on others to finish their work," Comey said.

 

[time]

A lot of interesting stuff in this article. I need to reread it myself, but this stood out to me...

******

Quoted from article:

And, at some point in the long night of a very long interrogation, Todashev broke, according to law enforcement sources familiar with accounts of what happened who requested anonymity because they do not have permission to speak publicly.

“I was there, but I didn’t do the murders,” Todashev said, according to those sources.  Under the heat, they say, Todashev blamed Tsarnaev for the murders.

They were coming up to midnight, in their fifth hour, and they were sweating; it was unbearably hot, one of the officers there would later recount, according to sources. Had they all been in a police station or an FBI office, they would have been cooler and safer. But they felt a sense of urgency, law enforcement sources told me.

They knew Todashev was planning on going home to Chechnya. (He had tickets to leave the country in two days, Manukyan said, and after he was shot to death, investigators found presents for his family upstairs, as well as $4,000 in his pocket, according to the search warrant returned to the court by the FBI.) As late as it was, the three officers were close to finishing up. They were almost done. What remained, according to sources, was to get Todashev to write his admission or confession.

http://www.wbur.org/2014/01/14/todashev-fatal-fbi-shooting


*****


BBM - I must have missed this is what Todashev allegedly said :facepalm:

 

[i.b.nora]

I thought it was a fascinating article. One of the things that stood out to me was:

"Todashev’s condominium unit sits within a mile of Universal Studios in Orlando, on Peregrine Avenue, where white ibises were wading at the pond out back when I visited in December. Peering through a low window, I saw a table and a folding chair in the otherwise-empty unit. It was the only chair that was ever there, Manukyan recalls.

I was with Hassan Shibly, an attorney and executive director of the Florida chapter of the civil rights group known as the Council on American Islamic Relations.

“If you have one chair — which we can assume Todashev sat in, surrounded for five hours by several armed officers, without an attorney present — it raises a lot of questions,” he said."

 

[i.b.nora]

Part Two of the article is here:

http://www.wbur.org/2014/01/15/todashev-force-weapons-questions

I listened to the audio on the first one, haven't done so yet with this second one.

 

[katydid23]

I think this was possibly a 'suicide-by-cop' situation. IT had already confessed to being at the murder scene. He was asked to write his confession. I think he may have snapped at that point and decided to die and take a few LE with him. jmo :moo:

 

[LambChop]

I think this was possibly a 'suicide-by-cop' situation. IT had already confessed to being at the murder scene. He was asked to write his confession. I think he may have snapped at that point and decided to die and take a few LE with him. jmo :moo:

Plus wasn't he a martial arts expert. If that is true he could have easily killed a couple of men before they shot him. jmo

 

[BeginnersLuck]

Thanks to everyone for keeping this thread updated. (my new laptop, only lets me thank a post and then if I want to thank others, I have to refresh. Strange!)

I find the martial arts unsettling, as I don't know the true motivation for his interest in martial arts.

He appeared to have a lot of time on his hands and lived somewhere that I would think would be rather pricey for someone without a job.

Apparently, the wife was working two jobs and they were sharing a checkbook according to statements made in the above links. He wasn't with the wife though, he was with the girlfriend.

It's been my experience that when I see women that enable men financially or in other ways, they will also lie for them.

It doesn't appear he had a useful purpose or existence and his fathers statements as to what he was doing in the US, are contrary to what has been reported.

I am interested in seeing the reports. I think there will be more criminal activity revealed.

IMO, he would rather die suicide by cop, before implicating himself or others. He would also want to try and cause harm to others in the process.

I think his friends statements about his fears he expressed in meeting with the FBI are true to the point that he may have feared they had information on him and the clock was ticking.

 

[LambChop]

Thanks to everyone for keeping this thread updated. (my new laptop, only lets me thank a post and then if I want to thank others, I have to refresh. Strange!)

I find the martial arts unsettling, as I don't know the true motivation for his interest in martial arts.

He appeared to have a lot of time on his hands and lived somewhere that I would think would be rather pricey for someone without a job.

Apparently, the wife was working two jobs and they were sharing a checkbook according to statements made in the above links. He wasn't with the wife though, he was with the girlfriend.

It's been my experience that when I see women that enable men financially or in other ways, they will also lie for them.

It doesn't appear he had a useful purpose or existence and his fathers statements as to what he was doing in the US, are contrary to what has been reported.

I am interested in seeing the reports. I think there will be more criminal activity revealed.

IMO, he would rather die suicide by cop, before implicating himself or others. He would also want to try and cause harm to others in the process.

I think his friends statements about his fears he expressed in meeting with the FBI are true to the point that he may have feared they had information on him and the clock was ticking.

It is possible, too, if he were ready to sign a confession he knew he could be facing the DP and chose to go out the way he did. He clearly was not going to give up without a fight and took a chance at being shot. Not very smart trying to tackle LE with so many of them there but maybe he did know what he was doing. And when you are a police officer your first thought when someone comes at you is that they are trying to get your gun. It's their greatest fear when challenged by a suspect. jmo

 

[BeginnersLuck]

Someone who dedicates years into "fight" training, would be far superior in skill than any LE officer. They would easily be able to take control over more than one individual.

Their bodies are trained to tolerate the pain and continue to fight. I am not surprised in the least, that he would have continued to advance towards the officer despite being shot. There wasn't a lot of distance between the two of them. It's clearly a small area as seen in the photos.

 

[time]

Reading the article, it sounded to me like Todashev may have claimed he was there (or knew about it?), but claimed he wasn't one of the Waltham murderers. That's why I found the part I bolded interesting. It almost seems like the FBI thought the same and just wanted info from him, the confession. IDK. Honestly, I'm confused about what I think.

I am not completely buying all that his wife says because, for one, she could be overdoing how much she really knew about his life or what was in the apartment or whatever since they split. I'm not buying her claims of IT not knowing Tsarnaev better.

Two, I'm also a little disturbed that so much of the news stories are based on anonymous police officers and such. Not sure the police handle things the same as the FBI either, especially when it comes to the use of force/guns. I think we talked about this specifically as related to the FBI before.

Three, I would really like to hear some actual forensic analysis based on a crime scene recreation in relation to the autopsy (and pictures of the body before the autopsy), blood spatter, IT's weapon (whether it was a weapon or his body), bullet holes, placement of people, official reports and notes from LE/FBI/etc who were there, etc. I'd also like to see actual crime scene photos and not photos taken after authorities were through with it all.

It's not that I trust the FBI or think this is all normal or anything, I just feel there is not enough to go on to think anyone is or isn't hiding anything.