World Courant
A Maine man who admitted making an attempt to kill three law enforcement officials with a machete in a terrorist assault close to New York’s Instances Sq. on New Yr’s Eve 16 months in the past was sentenced to 27 years in jail on Thursday in a courtroom full of officers.
The sentencing of Trevor Bickford in Manhattan federal courtroom got here after Decide P. Kevin Castel listened to emotional statements from the three law enforcement officials who Bickford attacked about two hours earlier than midnight on Dec. 21, 2022, because the officers screened New Yr’s revelers on the sole entrance to an in any other case closed-off Instances Sq..
MAINE ‘JIHADIST’ PLEADS GUILTY TO NEW YEAR’S EVE 2022 MACHETE ATTACK NEAR TIMES SQUARE
Bickford shouted “Allahu akbar” — the Arabic phrase for “God is nice” — earlier than placing the officers within the head with the machete and making an attempt to seize an officer’s gun. One officer suffered a fractured cranium.
A machete which was used to wound 3 NY law enforcement officials in an assault at Instances Sq. in New York on January 01, 2023. (NYPD/Anadolu Company by way of Getty Pictures)
The risk ended when Officer Michael Hanna shot Bickford within the shoulder. At a hospital, Bickford instructed authorities that he had studied radical Islamic ideology and determined to wage jihad towards U.S. officers.
The decide cited the 20-year-old Bickford’s age and historical past of psychological sickness as causes for leniency from federal sentencing tips that advisable a life time period. Prosecutors had requested a 50-year sentence whereas the protection advisable a 10-year time period.
He additionally recounted how Bickford’s mom had repeatedly sought assist from police and hospitals as she noticed her son’s descent into psychological diseases which have been recognized to incorporate schizoaffective bipolar dysfunction and main melancholy syndrome with signs of melancholy, mania and psychosis, together with grandiosity and hallucinations.
The decide mentioned Bickford instructed psychological well being professionals 20 days earlier than the New Yr’s Eve assault that he had a plan for harming others, supposed to behave on the plan and wished to commit a jihadist assault.
“I’m not a medical particular person, not right here to guage the medical individuals who noticed this and met with him, nevertheless it’s disturbing to learn these information,” Castel mentioned. “If his mom was listened to, her instincts have been listened to, if the medical occupation may take a look at issues a bit in another way, this may not have occurred.”
Given an opportunity to talk, Bickford apologized to the officers he harmed and different witnesses to his crime.
“I perceive that I left scars, bodily and psychological,” he mentioned. “My psychological sickness took me down a darkish path.”
Hanna, the primary officer to talk on the sentencing, recalled the assault, saying he had simply ducked his head barely when he “noticed a big blade swiping subsequent to my head” and spun round to see Bickford chasing him with a machete that contained a 13-inch blade.
“As he continued to strategy, I took my firearm out and discharged one bullet, which instantly struck the defendant. He dropped to the bottom,” Hanna mentioned.
The officer mentioned his dad and mom had immigrated from the Center East twenty years in the past “to flee this sort of factor.”
Officer Louis Lorio mentioned he may barely stay acutely aware after a big minimize to his scalp required seven stitches that evening.
Now, he mentioned, he suffers migraine complications a number of days per week and is more likely to be pressured into retirement after a decade-long police profession as he copes with nervousness and melancholy that trigger him to “burst out crying for no motive” or cripple him with waves of disappointment. Remedy, although, has helped, he added.
Officer Paul Cozzolino, who had graduated from the police academy solely a day earlier than the assault, mentioned some bodily ache equivalent to complications will final endlessly. He choked up as he mentioned the half he’ll “cherish endlessly” was when he went house to his household that evening.
Protection lawyer Marisa Cabrera mentioned her consumer, who’s “deeply remorseful,” comes from a household with a “robust and proud navy background,” together with two grandparents who served within the U.S. Navy, a brother presently within the navy and a youthful brother who plans to hitch.
Bickford wished to hitch the navy too earlier than psychological diseases took over, she mentioned.
Now, she mentioned, “Bickford has returned to his outdated self with assistance from remedy and therapy.”
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Assistant U.S. Legal professional Kaylan Lasky, although, urged the decide to disregard Bickford’s “self-serving claims” of rehabilitation, significantly as a result of he may return to his former frame of mind if he ever went off his remedy.
She mentioned he “shouldn’t be given one other alternative to kill Individuals” after he “injured, maimed and terrorized harmless New Yorkers.”
The decide ordered that after Bickford will get out of jail, authorities monitor his web utilization and different aspects of his existence for the remainder of his life.
