NEW YORK — The accused Times Square machete attacker was indicted Friday on multiple terrorism counts including attempted murder for targeting three police officers during his crazed New Year’s Eve rampage, prosecutors said.
Self-declared jihadist Trevor Bickford, who remained in the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward six days after his Midtown arrest, will face the new charges brought in the 18-count indictment at his first Manhattan court appearance sometime next week, prosecutors said.
Bickford traveled from his home in Maine to Manhattan before appearing just north of the revelers gathered to ring in 2023, with the suspect later declaring his intent to “kill an officer in uniform,” prosecutors alleged on Wednesday. One of the wounded officers, a rookie working his first shift, suffered a fractured skull before another cop shot the suspect, authorities said.
The indictment included the upgraded charges of three counts of attempted murder in furtherance of terrorism, along with additional terrorism counts for assault, attempted assault and multiple assaults on police officers in the unprovoked ambush with a curved black blade at Eighth Ave. and W. 52nd St.
Bickford was arraigned Wednesday in his hospital bed on charges that could land the teen behind bars for life, prosecutors said, alleging the suspect arrived in Times Square intent on killing uniformed New York Police Department officers.
“I saw the officer and waited until he was alone,” court papers quoted Bickford as telling authorities. “I said, ‘Allahu Akbar.’ I walked up and hit him over the head with a (machete). I charged another officer but dropped the knife. And I tried to get the police officer’s gun but couldn’t.”
Assistant District Attorney Lucy Nicholas said the lone attacker arrived in the city “to kill people and and carry out jihad,” adding he picked Manhattan “to begin carrying out his crimes of murder of government officials.”
The suspect said nothing of his alleged crimes during his hospital appearance, only answering “yes” to a pair of questions posed by the judge. Family members had yet to say anything about the attack or the arrest.
According to a friend in his hometown of Wells, Maine, Bickford embraced radical Islam last summer. Prosecutors charged the trip to New York was intended to “carry out jihad” against police and government officials, and the suspect faces life imprisonment if convicted in the attack less than two hours before the annual Times Square ball drop.
Neighbors in his small town of 10,000 were shocked by the arrest of the local teen, who worked summers at a local golf course and played on the high school football team.
Law enforcement sources said the defendant was staying in a Queens park before heading into Manhattan, and police sources said Bickford expected the attack to end with his death. A note recovered by investigators included his request for a traditional Muslim funeral, the sources added.
