An FBI agent shot and killed a Florida man who turned violent while being questioned about the Boston Marathon bombings early on Wednesday (May 22), the bureau said.

A friend of the dead man told the Orlando Sentinel and Orlando television stations that he was 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev of Orlando, a Chechen who had previously lived in Boston. Two brothers identified by the FBI as suspects in the April 15 bombings were also ethnic Chechens with roots in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region.

The FBI said in a statement that a special agent, "acting on the imminent threat posed by the individual, responded with deadly force. The individual was killed and the special agent was transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries."

Todashev's friend, Khusn Taramiv, said Todashev knew bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev because both were mixed martial-arts fighters but had no connection to the bombing. He said Todashev wanted to leave country.

The shooting occurred at an Orlando apartment complex where several people of Chechen descent lived. Taramiv said Todashev and others in the complex had been questioned several times by law enforcement agents since the day the Tsarnaev brothers were identified as the bombing suspects.

In Florida, the Orange County Sheriff's Office said Todashev had been arrested on May 4 and charged with aggravated battery with great bodily harm. Details about the circumstances of the arrest were not immediately available.

Presented by Adam Justice