Suspect in Machete Attack Near Times Square on New Year’s Eve Wanted to Join Taliban: Report

The suspect in the machete attack near Times Square on New Year’s Eve wanted to join the Taliban, according to a CNN report on Monday.

Trevor Bickford, 19, “carried a handwritten diary that expressed his desire to join the Taliban in Afghanistan and die as a martyr,” according to the outlet, citing “law enforcement sources.”

Bickford is in custody, though he has not yet been charged, and is being treated at a hospital. He was shot at by a police officer outside a screening zone for the New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square. Three officers were injured in the attack.

According to CNN:

Investigators on Sunday were seeking search warrants for the suspect’s phone and online activities to determine if he had been viewing violent extremist propaganda, law enforcement sources said.

The NYPD had sent a bulletin Friday to law enforcement partners across the country titled, “ISIS-Aligned Media Unit Releases Video Ahead of New Year’s Eve, Demanding Lone Offender Attacks,” according to the sources. The video, being circulated in online chat rooms, shows “selected video clips, suggesting various means of attack, including explosives, handguns, knives, and toxins,” according to the bulletin, obtained by CNN.

It’s not clear if the checkpoint attack suspect has viewed terrorist propaganda. The tactics appear to follow a familiar model of prior attacks against New York City by lone offenders.

Watch above via CNN.