Alleged Islamic Extremist Who Attacked NYPD Cops With Machete Was on FBI Watchlist

The alleged Islamic extremist who attacked three NYPD cops with a machete near the New Year’s Eve ball drop in Times Square is a 19-year-old man from Maine who recently became radicalized — and was already on an FBI watchlist, law-enforcement sources told The Post Sunday.

Suspect Trevor Bickford, of Wells, Maine, traveled to New York on an Amtrak train — arriving on Dec. 29 — and appeared to have been a lone wolf {snip}

He allegedly told the feds after his arrest that he hatched the violent plan as recently as Friday, and made statements that he wanted to attack a uniformed officer or someone armed because they are the “enemy of the state,” according to the sources.

Sources said teen became “radicalized” as recently as a month ago.

Bickford’s mother and aunt had notified authorities because he apparently made statements indicating a desire to go fight in Afghanistan alongside Islamic militants, landing him on the FBI’s terrorism “Guardian Watchlist,” according to the sources.

Investigators were said to be looking at Bickford’s Internet history, including his phone and computer.

The suspected cop-hater carried a diary and a handwritten manifesto in his backpack in which he urged his family to “please repent to Allah and accept Islam,” according to sources.

He was staying at a hotel in the Bowery in lower Manhattan —packing camping gear, a diary and a last will and testament — before heading to Midtown where he walked up to the cops without notice and began swinging the weapon, a type of machete known as a Gurkha, according to sources.

Two officers working the holiday detail in Times Square were struck in the head with what Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell described as “a large knife” around 10 p.m. {snip}

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Officer Louis Iorio, who is stationed in Staten Island, suffered a gash to the head {snip}

The other wounded officer, a rookie who is assigned to the Police Academy, was identified by sources as Paul Cozzolino. He suffered a fractured skull. {snip}

A third officer, Michael Hanna, also a rookie, shot Bickford in the shoulder after he and the other cops were attacked {snip}

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Published reports reveal that Bickford appeared to be a typical American teenager before he apparently “found religion” in the wake of his father’s overdose death in 2018 {snip}

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