Authorities have not commented on the attacker’s motives, but the newspaper, citing an unnamed senior law enforcement official, said the suspect was motivated by “Islamic extremism.”
A 19-year-old man accused of attacking three police officers with a machete on New Year’s Eve in New York’s Times Square has been charged with attempted murder and assault. The New York Times in its report claims that this case is related to Islamic extremism.
According to the NYPD, 19-year-old Trevor Bickford of Wells, Maine, is charged with two counts of attempted murder and two counts of attempted assault.
Authorities have not commented on the attacker’s motives, but the newspaper, citing an unnamed senior law enforcement official, said the suspect was motivated by “Islamic extremism.” Bickford converted to Islam sometime in the past 18 months.
Bickford traveled to New York from his home in Maine on Saturday. The attack, which police said was unprovoked, took place late at night outside the safety zone of the square in Manhattan. One of the three officers targeted had recently graduated from the Police Academy and suffered traumatic brain injuries. All three were taken to hospital but were released today.
One of the officers shot the suspect and wounded him in the shoulder. Bickford remains hospitalized at Bellevue Hospital.
Before the attack he wrote a farewell letter to his family in his diary, according to the NYT. Addressing his mother, he wrote: “I am very afraid that you will not repent before Allah and therefore my heart hopes that a part of me believes in you so that you can come out of the fire of hell.” Bickford also wrote of his brother, who serves in the US Army, that he “adopted the uniform of the enemy.”
According to CNN, in his diary he expressed a desire to join the Afghan Taliban and die as a martyr.
FBI agents who spoke to NBC on condition of anonymity said federal police had been monitoring his online activity and had questioned him in mid-December after being tipped off by a source that he was making jihadist statements.
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