Alleged NYC attacker Trevor Bickford was on FBI radar since Dec. 10, sources say

The Maine teenager and suspected radicalized Islamist extremist charged with attacking NYPD cops close to Occasions Sq. had been on the FBI’s radar for about three weeks earlier than the New 12 months’s Eve slashing, legislation enforcement sources instructed The Publish on Tuesday.

Trevor Bickford’s mother, Audra Simpson, known as police of their city to specific considerations about her 19-year-old son’s growing obsession with Islam on Dec. 10, and native cops handed the tip on to the feds, the sources mentioned.

The FBI positioned him on its “Guardian Watchlist” — but it surely’s unclear what different motion was taken earlier than he boarded an Amtrak practice to New York on Dec. 29.

Two days later, Bickford allegedly set upon cops working the vacation safety element close to the Crossroads of the World with a machete, injuring three, together with a rookie on his first day who suffered a cranium fracture. Sources have mentioned the attacker yelled “Allah Akbar” or “Allahu Akbar” when he lunged on the officers.

An FBI spokesperson on Tuesday declined to touch upon the case, telling The Publish that the incident is a part of “a really energetic investigation.”

Bickford — who got here to embrace extremist Islamist views as not too long ago as a month in the past — was affected by melancholy and never taking his meds for over a yr, sources mentioned.

He started to learn the Quran day by day as he grew to become obsessive about Islam, and talked of touring to Burma or China to commit Jihad, the sources mentioned. The teenager had additionally toyed with the concept of becoming a member of Taliban militants in Afghanistan, in response to the sources.

Bickford was interviewed by native and federal legislation enforcement following his arrest and allegedly mentioned he had in the end chosen to focus on someplace within the US as a substitute, in response to sources. The assault itself, nonetheless, appeared sudden and spontaneous, the sources mentioned.

Neighbors and sources mentioned Bickford “discovered faith” within the years after his father, Tom, died from an overdose in 2018 and have become more and more immersed in Islam.

Bickford allegedly instructed authorities that he’d transformed three to 4 months in the past, and extra not too long ago grew to become radicalized after studying Muslim texts at a neighborhood bookstore, in response to the sources.

“It is a traditional instance of the form of individual [law enforcement] is anxious about with regards to extremism,” one police supply mentioned.

Along with a “manifesto” he carried with him, authorities discovered a number of non secular texts, together with a replica of a doc titled “Cease Genocide, Save Rohingya Now, Burma Job Drive,” the sources mentioned.

Sources mentioned the alleged homegrown terrorist spent a number of hours in Occasions Sq. and left a sleeping bag, a bedroll and different gadgets at Forest Park in Queens, and booked a room at a Bowery lodge. Police traced him to Queens by way of a MetroCard he used, the sources mentioned.

Round 9:30 p.m. Dec. 31, he allegedly lunged at three cops at 52nd Road and Eighth Avenue with a Gurkha knife — a sort of machete — and injured the officers earlier than he was shot within the shoulder and wounded by one of many cops.

The troubled teen remained at Bellevue Hospital recovering from his wounds on Tuesday. He was awaiting arraignment on tried homicide and assault fees.

The incident shocked locals in Wells — a resort city on the Maine coast with a inhabitants of simply over 11,000 — the place Bickford as soon as appeared like a typical American teenager, a former honor scholar and a part of a championship-winning highschool workforce.

Shunning the household’s newfound notoriety, the teenager’s mother was noticed posting “Personal Property” indicators exterior her mom’s residence to maintain reporters away on Tuesday.