Jihadist in Times Square who attacked three police officers with a machete will now face federal court

Prosecutors said Tuesday that a man accused of assaulting three police officers with a machete a foot from revelers on New Year’s Eve in Times Square faces federal charges in addition to state criminal charges.

Trevor Bickford, a self-proclaimed jihadist, was indicted last week in Manhattan Supreme Court on multiple counts of terrorism and attempted murder in connection with an ambush at Eighth Avenue and W. 52nd Street on December 31st.

Bickford is in New York State custody and is expected to appear in federal court in Manhattan on an unspecified date, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement Tuesday.

A source familiar with the Manhattan District Attorney’s prosecution said the federal and state cases against Bickford will run in parallel, with the offices working closely.

Bickford, a Maine native, attacked officers who were part of joint state and federal law enforcement assigned to New Year’s Eve celebrations in Times Square, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement.

The intruder went into town obsessed with injuring the officers, one of whom was a rookie working his first shift after graduating from the police academy.

When he arrived at the checkpoint where Times Square spectators could pass through the barricades, prosecutors said, he shouted “Allahu Akbar” – Arabic for “God is great.”

Rookie officer Paul Cozzolino suffered a skull fracture, and Officer Louis Iorio, an eight-year NYPD veteran, suffered a less serious head wound. Both were being treated at Bellevue Hospital and were released the same weekend they were attacked.

Bickford was shot in the shoulder by Officer Michael Hanna, who joined the NYPD in April.

Bockford, 19, began studying radical Islamic ideology in the summer of 2022, eventually “devoting himself to violent Islamic extremism and waging jihad,” prosecutors said.

In November, he expressed interest in traveling to Afghanistan to support the Taliban and fight against governments he believes are anti-Muslim, including the United States.

Bickford told a family member that he wanted to be a suicide bomber when he got to the Middle East, but instead decided to stay in the States and “wage jihad against the US government,” prosecutors said.

A crazy man was expecting to die during the attack when we targeted military-age men in uniform with guns and working for the US government.

Prosecutors said Bickford considered the attack a failure because both he and the officers survived.

He is charged with four federal counts of attempted murder of officers and employees of the US government and those who helped them. If found guilty, he could face up to 80 years in prison.

With Molly Crane-Newman