Suspect in Machete Attack on NYPD Officers Allegedly Islamic Extremist

The Maine teenager and alleged recently radicalized Islamic extremist suspected of attacking NYPD officers with a machete on New Year’s Eve was officially charged — as police found belongings tied to him in a Queens park on Monday.

Trevor Bickford, 19, was hit with state charges — two counts of attempted murder and two counts of assault — over the Dec. 31 attack near Times Square that left three police officers injured, the New York Post reports.

It came after officers responded to reports of suspicious packages in Forrest Park just after midnight, and discovered a sleeping bag, bedroll and various food items purportedly belonging to the suspect, police sources told The Post.

Bickford, a Wells, Maine, resident, had been radicalized in Islamic extremism as recently as a month ago, according to law enforcement sources. Bickford, of Wells, Maine, traveled to New York on an Amtrak train — arriving on Dec. 29 — and appeared to have been a lone wolf, sources have said.

Bickford is charged with approaching Officers Louis Iorio and Paul Cozzolino at West 52nd Street and Eighth Avenue — near a post where the NYPD was screening revelers for weapons — around 9:30 p.m. and slashing them with the 18-inch weapon. 

Cozzolino — a rookie who just graduated from the Police Academy on Friday — suffered a fractured skull and Iorio, an eight-year veteran who is stationed in Staten Island, was gashed in the head. Both were released from the hospital Sunday.

A third officer, Michael Hanna, also a rookie, shot Bickford in the shoulder. He is hospitalized.

Bickford had already been on the FBI’s terrorism watch list after his mother and other aunt had reported the newly radicalized man.