(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) The first major domestic act of mass violence in 2023 was not a mass shooting, but rather an act of Islamic terrorism by a machete-wielding assailant against three New York City police officers.
In a scene reminiscent of a Third World genocide, police say the 19-year-old assailant attacked the officers unprovoked, swinging a machete at their heads.
After causing panic among revelers attending the annual Times Square ball drop, the suspect was later apprehended and identified as Trevor Bickford of Wells, Maine, according to the Post Millennial.
The suspect accused of attacking police officers with a machete near the New Year’s Eve ball drop in Times Square has been identified as a Muslim extremist. Trevor Bickford, who frequented a mosque near his Maine home, took a train to NYC. https://t.co/b6yQHQkfmR pic.twitter.com/xmpYc13Rsw
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) January 1, 2023
All three officers are expected to survive, but one officer suffered a fractured skull, and another suffered a laceration to his head, according to NBC New York.
“All three of the officers are in stable conditions,” New York City Mayor, Eric Adams, said according to MSN.
Bickford was shot in the shoulder by police and is also expected to survive.
The 19-year-old had no prior arrests but had been reported to law enforcement by his mother and aunt who informed police that he had been expressing radical Islamic views, according to ABC News.
The FBI and NYPD’s counterterrorism bureau, both prompted by the report, have begun investigating the suspect’s social media posts to confirm a motive.
The NYPD, prior to New Year’s Eve, had noted that “multiple pro-ISIS users disseminated extremist propaganda graphics broadly calling for attacks in advance of the New Year.” Specifically, these Islamic terrorists were “advocating a wide range of low-tech tactics.”
These tactics included knife attacks; a method that has become strongly correlated with Islamic terrorist organizations.
The suspect took an Amtrack train from Maryland to New York City on Dec. 29, according to ABC News.
Though the suspect is from Maryland, one cannot help but wonder if the young man could have been radicalized if President Donald Trump’s proposed policy to deal with Islamic terrorism had been maintained.
Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” in part, because “a poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showing ‘25% of … [Muslims] polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad.’”
