Man who attacked three NYPD officers with machetes on New Year’s Eve 2022 sentenced to 27 years in prison

CNN
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The man who attacked three New York police officers with a machete on New Year’s Eve 2022 has been sentenced to 27 years in prison. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office announced this on Thursday.

Trevor Bickford, 20, pleaded guilty in January to three counts of attempted murder of U.S. government officials and employees and three counts of assault on U.S. government officials and employees, CNN reported.

“Inspired by radical Islamic extremism, Trevor Bickford brutally attacked three NYPD officers who were simply doing their jobs by protecting the public during New Year’s Eve celebrations in Times Square,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement Thursday. “Fortunately, an officer’s quick actions were able to stop the defendant’s attack while minimizing the risk to the innocent bystanders who could have easily become additional victims of the defendant’s heinous violence.”

“Bickford’s conviction and sentence demonstrate that cowardly terrorist attacks are met with law enforcement’s unwavering determination to protect New York City, our country, and our core values ​​of freedom and democracy,” Williams added.

CNN has reached out to an attorney for Bickford for comment.

Bickford, a U.S. citizen and resident of Maine, traveled to New York City “to, as he puts it, wage jihad and kill as many of his targets as possible,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release.

On Dec. 31, 2022, Bickford entered the security area of ​​the Times Square checkpoint, pulled out a machete and struck one officer in the head with the blade and another officer in the head with the handle, authorities said. He then swung the blade at a third officer, who shot him in the shoulder, according to police.

As CNN previously reported, Bickford later admitted that he planned to kill as many government-employed military-age men as possible before becoming a martyr himself.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, before the attack, Bickford had “consumed materials espousing a racist Islamic ideology” and was “committed to violent Islamic extremism and the pursuit of jihad that he would eventually unleash in the heart of New York City.” “. .

He had planned to travel abroad to support the Taliban, but then decided to turn his attention to an attack in the United States, the release said.