The FBI has been following the Times Square terrorist around for three weeks. They obviously weren’t paying proper attention on New Year’s Eve, when he slashed police with an Al-Qaeda endorsed “Gurkha” knife. Radicalized Islamist extremist Trevor Bickford had recently found “religion” and wanted to do his part for the cause.
FBI looking the wrong way
The FBI was well aware that 19-year-old Trevor Bickford was a potential domestic terrorist but they weren’t ready to take him off the street yet. The resident of Maine was reported to them by his mom on December 10.
He was acting a lot like a “radicalized Islamist extremist.” They decided to let him run loose for a while and he’s now “charged with attacking NYPD cops near Times Square.”
The media keeps calling his weapon a “machete” to make people think he’s with MS-13 instead of a maniac on a Jihad spree. There’s no doubt he was using a standard Taliban issue Gurkha knife. There’s nothing better for separating a head from the spine.
Trevor Bickford, a 19-year-old from Maine, has been charged with attempted murder of a police officer and other crimes in the harrowing New Year's Eve machete attack near Times Square. https://t.co/CvNaYhu0k3
— NBC10 Boston (@NBC10Boston) January 4, 2023
His mom was nervous enough about his “increasing obsession with Islam” to call the cops. They, in turn, called the FBI, who assured her they would keep an eye on him. Obviously, the feds blinked.
The FBI placed Bickford right at the top of their “Guardian Watchlist” and that was the end of it.
New York Post notes that “its unclear what other action was taken before he boarded an Amtrak train to New York on December 29.” They didn’t catch up to him over the next two days, either.
Yelling ‘Allah Akbar’ as he lunged
With everyone on the NYPD at maximum alert, for any hint of trouble in Times Square, Bickford “set upon cops working the holiday security detail near the Crossroads of the World.” His wickedly curved blade slashed three cops, “including a rookie on his first day,” who also suffered a skull fracture.
Witnesses all agree the attacker yelled “Allah Akbar” or “Allahu Akbar” when he “lunged at the officers.” The FBI was busy trying to find Russian collusion to pin on Donald Trump and missed it. “This is a classic example of the kind of person [law enforcement] is concerned about when it comes to extremism,” one police source relates. Not concerned enough.
The bureau isn’t talking about the way they dropped the ball. An official spokesunit “declined to comment on the case.” They aren’t talking about why they didn’t have a tighter leash on an active terror suspect. All they have to say in their defense is that the incident is part of “a very active investigation.”
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
The FBI can do some investigating now that the attack is over. Some say they dragged their feet on preventing it because they wanted to engineer him into something bigger, which they could bust in progress for some favorable press. They didn’t think he’d jump the gun before they were ready.
Bickford was obviously an unstable person with drastically deteriorating mental clarity. He “found religion” only a month ago. He “came to embrace extremist Islamist views” while “suffering from depression and not taking his meds.” He had been off his drugs for a year.
The FBI was well aware that he “began to read the Quran daily as he became obsessed with Islam, and talked of traveling to Burma or China to commit Jihad.” He was also hyped to join “Taliban militants in Afghanistan.” Times Square was a whole lot closer and doesn’t require a passport. “Bickford was interviewed by local and federal law enforcement following his arrest and allegedly said that he had ultimately chosen to target somewhere in the US instead.“
