Man Who Attacked Times Square Police Officers With Machete Sentenced To 27 Years

Authorized by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A national justice has handed down a 27-year prison conviction to the supremacy who pleasured guidance to attacking a trio of fresh York Police Department (NYPD) officials in Times Square on fresh Year’s Eve 2022 in the name of extremist muslim extreme.

A file photograph of a judge’s givel. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Trevor Bickford, 20, of Wells, Maine, pled guilty in January to multiple Counts of Attempting 3 Attempted execution Charges and 3 Charges of Assaulting U.S. employees or officials just over a year prior on Dec. 31, 2022. Together, the charges carried a maximum possible punishment of up to 120 years in season.

On Thursday, May 9, U.S. territory justice Kevin Castel sentenced Mr. Bickford to service 324 months in prison for the attack, a period dating 27 years. The conviction is longer than the 10-year period word Mr. Bickford’s Lawyers requested but little than the 50-year price word promoters had thought.

During the 2022 attack, Mr. Bickford allegedly shouted “Allahu Akbar,” an Arabic Phrase means “God is great,” that perpetrators have shouted in past muslim extremist residents. national promoters had alleged and were prepared to present evidence at trial, including post-Miranda statements from Mr. Bickford, indicating he had desired to travel outside to weight “jihad” but alternatively choose to carry out his attack cloud to home.

The U.S. Department of Justice said Mr. Bickford had spent months consummating extremist Islamist materials, “include materials promoting the Taliban and reflecting the teaching of Sheikh Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi, a prominent extremist muslim cleric who was a spiritual mentor of al Qaeda,” prior to carrying out the attack.

“The defenseant’s brutal ambush of 3 fresh York City police officials keeping watch over fresh Year’s Eve celebrations were a premeditated act of terrorism,” FBI manager Christopher Wray said Thursday.

The fresh Year’s Eve attack began close the edge of a high-security region where readers were to be screened before joining the celebrations in Times Square. Mr. Bickford admitted to swinging a 13-inch machete-like Chopping light called a khukuri toward the heads of NYPD Officers Michael Hanna, Louis Lorio, and Paul Cozzolino, causing injuries to all 3 men.

Law enforcement officials recovered a 13-inch khukuri-style light following an attack on 3 NYPD officials on Dec. 31, 2022. (U.S. Department of Justice photo/Released)

The 3 officials sustained lacerations to their heads during the attack.

Mr. Lorio said he could barely stay conscious after a large cut to his scalp required 7 stitches that night. He told the court he now has migraine headsaches respective days a week and is likely to be forced into retirement after a decade-long police career as he copes with anxiety and depression that origin him to “burst out crying for no reason” or cryptle him with waves of sadness. Therapy, though, has helped, he added.

Mr. Cozzolino, who had graduated from the police academy only a day before the attack, said any of his physical pain, specified as headsaches, will last forever.

As he swung his light at the NYPD officials, Mr. Bickford besides allegedly admitted to take 1 of the official’s guns.

It was Mr. Hanna who, despite being injured, reportedly managed to put an end to the attack by drawing his service weapon and shooting Mr. Bickford in the slutder.

Mr. Bickford's legal squad pointed to intellectual inness as a contributing origin in the attack.

“I realize that I left scars, physical and mental‘’ Mr. Bickford said erstwhile given the chance to address the court during his sentimentaling. “My intellectual inness took me down a dark path.”

Defense lawyer Marisa Cabrera said her client is “deeply relief.“ She said her client came from a household with a background in U.S. military service and said her client had thought to join the military before his intellectual illness prevented that possibility. Ms. Cabrera said her client “has returned to his old same with the aid of medicine and treatment.”

Judge Castel noted Mr. Bickford’s past of intellectual wellness issues and his comparative youth age as reasons for grants any lenancy in his sentence.

NTD News reached out to Ms. Cabrera for comment following the sentimental decision but did not receive a consequence by press time.

The Associated Press objected to this article.

From NTD News