Man pleads guilty to attack on police

Targeted officers in NYC on New Year’s Eve 2022

A Maine man who authorities say attempted to kill three New York City police officers with a machete-style knife “in the name of jihad” on New Year’s Eve 2022 pleaded guilty to federal charges on Thursday, according to prosecutors and court records.

Trevor Bickford, 20, of Wells, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to three counts of attempted murder of law enforcement officers and three counts of assaulting law enforcement officers, the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York said in a statement.

Bickford apologized in court when he was asked to describe his crimes.

“On December 31, 2022, I attempted to kill three NYPD officers with a knife while they were working in Manhattan,” Bickford said, according to the Associated Press. “I know what I did was wrong and I’m sorry.”

He faces up to 120 years in prison and will be sentenced on April 11.

“Today’s guilty plea should serve as a warning: terrorists who target and attack law enforcement and endanger the American people will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in the statement.

Prosecutors said Bickford had been radicalized in the months before the attack through consuming “materials espousing radical Islamic ideology” and had planned to travel to the Middle East to fight alongside the Taliban. He later decided to instead stage an attack on US soil, in particular Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

According to prosecutors, Bickford “tried to purchase a firearm and ammunition but ultimately settled on a footlong blade as his weapon of choice.”

He took an Amtrak train to New York City and, about two hours before the ball dropped, Bickford attacked the three police officers just outside the security barriers of Times Square before one of them shot him in the shoulder, authorities have said. Prosecutors said Bickford called out “Allahu Akbar” before charging at the officers with his blade.

One officer suffered a skull fracture and a laceration to the back of his head and needed more than a dozen stitches, prosecutors have said. The officer who shot Bickford suffered serious neck pain, shortness of breath, dizziness, and headaches. The third officer involved in the attack also required multiple stitches to his head.

After waiving his Miranda rights at the hospital, Bickford admitted he had attacked the officers in the name of “jihad,” the Globe previously reported.

“When asked why he decided to attack the first officer, the defendant stated that the officer was a man in uniform who had a weapon; that all men of military age were his targets; that no one can work for the US Government and be a true Muslim, because the US Government supports Israel; and that he wanted to kill as many of these targets as he could,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing last summer.

Bickford’s attorneys could not immediately be reached Thursday evening.

Bickford also faces state charges in connection to the attack.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to messages seeking further information Thursday.