Man who attacked 3 NYPD officers with machete on New Year’s Eve 2022 sentenced to 27 years in prison

By Rob Frehse, CNN

(CNN) — The man who attacked three New York City police officers with a machete on New Year’s Eve in 2022 has been sentenced to 27 years in prison, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.

Trevor Bickford, 20, pleaded guilty in January to three counts of attempted murder of officers and employees of the US government and three counts of assault of officers and employees of the US government, CNN reported.

“Inspired by radical Islamic extremism, Trevor Bickford brutally attacked three NYPD officers who were just doing their jobs by protecting the public during the Times Square New Year’s Eve festivities,” US Attorney Damian Williams said in a Thursday statement. “Thankfully, one officer’s quick-thinking actions stopped the defendant’s attack while minimizing risk to the innocent bystanders who easily might have become additional victims of the defendant’s heinous violence.”

“Bickford’s conviction and sentence demonstrate that cowardly acts of terrorism will be met with law enforcement’s unwavering resolve 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 US citizen and Maine resident, traveled to New York City “to, in his own words, wage jihad and kill as many of his targets as possible,” the US Attorney’s Office said in a news release.

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

Bickford later admitted he intended to kill as many military-aged, government-employed men as he could before himself becoming a martyr, CNN has previously reported.

Before carrying out the attack, Bickford had “consumed materials espousing racial Islamic ideology” and had “devoted himself to violent Islamic extremism and pursuit of the jihad that he would eventually unleash in the heart of New York City,” according to the US Attorney’s Office.

He had planned to travel overseas to support the Taliban but ultimately decided to turn his attention to an attack in the US, the release said.

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