Three officers assigned to New Year’s Eve celebrations in New York City’s Times Square area were injured by a machete-wielding teenager who expressed militant support for Islam, law enforcement officials said.
The attack happened shortly after 10 p.m. at West 52nd Street and 8th Avenue, just outside checkpoints for the high-security zone set up for celebrants, officials said at a news conference early Sunday.
The suspect approached an officer and tried to strike him over the head with the machete, Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said. He then struck two officers in the head with the blade before he was shot in the shoulder and apprehended by police, Sewell said.
Three law enforcement officials with direct knowledge of the investigation said late Sunday that authorities were looking into whether the suspect reached for one of the officers’ service weapons during their takedown. The injured police were out of the hospital and expected to recover.
Authorities identified the suspect at the news conference only as a 19-year-old man. Four senior law enforcement officials said the man is Trevor Bickford of Wells, Maine.
The suspect was known to federal agents, who interviewed him in mid-December after a relative alerted them to his revolutionary support for Islam, four law enforcement sources briefed on the investigation said.

Nbcnews