Suspect in Times Square machete attack charged with attempted murder

Jan. 2 (UPI) -- A suspect accused of attacking three New York City police offers with a machete during New Year's Eve celebrations in Times Square has been arrested and charged, police said Monday.

Trevor Bickford, 19, of Wells, Maine, is facing two counts of attempted murder and two counts of attempted assault for the violent attack, NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell and Mayor Eric Adams told reporters.

Police said Bickford approached the officers at a security checkpoint near Times Square around 10 p.m. Sunday and hit two of them in the head with a machete. He was then shot by another officer in the shoulder.

Three of the officers have been hospitalized, including one with a fractured skull.

Law enforcement sources told NBC News that Bickford was known to federal agents after they interviewed him in mid-December following an alert from a relative who said he had expressed militant support for Islam.

The sources said a diary kept by Bickford contained information about who should inherit his belongings and where he wanted to be buried should he die in the attack. They said he also wrote about regrets for disappointing his mother and hopes his brothers would join him in his fight for Islam.

FBI agents were outside Bickford's home on Sunday, WCSH-TV, Portland, Maine, reported.