The New York Police Department announced Monday that the 19-year-old suspect who attacked three police officers with a machete on New Year’s Eve near the famous Times Square has been charged with attempted murder.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office said it is not yet aware that the suspect, Trevor Bickford, who has been formally arrested, has a lawyer assigned to his case, according to CNN.
The attack occurred around 10.00 am (local time), when the suspect approached a police officer and tried to hit him in the head with a machete, after which he hit the other two policemen before one of the officers fired his service weapon.
During the investigation, authorities discovered a personal diary of Bickford, who has been hospitalized since Saturday after being wounded by one of the officers, in which he expressed in a handwritten diary his desire to join the Taliban in Afghanistan and die a martyr’s death.
The suspect may have traveled, law enforcement officials hypothesized, from Wells, where he resides, to Manhattan last Thursday via Amtrak. Bickford may have stayed at a homeless shelter upon his arrival in the city, NBC News reported.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
