NYPD officers fatally shoot woman who stabbed two people in Times Square, killing one [VIDEO]
Pamela Cisneros, 49, stabbed two people in a random attack before advancing on police with knives. Officers used Tasers without effect and then fired their service weapons
A woman stabbed two people in Times Square on August 31, killing one and injuring another before advancing on police with knives and being shot dead by officers. The confrontation lasted approximately four minutes. Officers used Tasers, which did not stop her, and then two officers fired their service weapons. The suspect, Pamela Cisneros, 49, of Queens, was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital.
The attack unfolded near Seventh Avenue and West 41st Street just before 4:30 p.m. Cisneros removed two large kitchen knives from a shopping bag. She first stabbed a 68-year-old man in the abdomen. Within 20 seconds, she moved north and stabbed Erin Piacenti, 32, also in the abdomen. Piacenti was pronounced dead. The man was later described as stable after initially life-threatening injuries.
A Random Attack in the Crossroads of the World
The footage shows a chaotic scene in Midtown Manhattan amid yellow taxis, NYPD vehicles with lights flashing, and large billboards. A woman in a pink short-sleeve shirt and blue jeans holds a knife in each hand. Officers in dark uniforms form a loose arc around her, keeping distance rather than closing immediately. The woman walks and turns, gesturing or pointing the blades toward officers at several points.
Police issued repeated commands to drop the knives over a period of about four minutes. Cisneros refused. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, citing body-camera review, said Cisneros told officers: “I’m not dropping anything, I would rather kill both of you,” and also, “I will kill you.” Witnesses captured officers shouting “Drop the knives!” and, later, “Tase her.”
Taser deployments followed. Multiple officers fired stun guns. The devices did not stop her. She continued toward officers while waving the knives. Two officers then fired service weapons. She fell. Later frames in the circulating clip show her prone on the pavement as officers move in, control her arms, and crowd around her.
The Victims
Erin Piacenti, 32, was a vice president on Bank of America’s business selection and conflicts team. She was a University of Pennsylvania graduate who later earned a law degree magna cum laude from Fordham. She had worked at Davis Polk and had been at Bank of America about 18 months. August 31 was her first day back after about five months of maternity leave following the birth of her daughter, Madison.
She and her husband, Frank, had recently marked a second wedding anniversary and moved from Manhattan’s Upper East Side to Chester, New Jersey. Colleagues and a family GoFundMe described her as a new mother heading home after that first day back. Bank of America issued condolences. The fundraiser for Madison raised hundreds of thousands of dollars within days.
The 68-year-old man stabbed in the attack was identified in some reports as Tak Kam. He had just left a subway station and was waiting to cross with his wife when Cisneros attacked him. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital with initially life-threatening injuries and later described as stable.
The Suspect
Pamela Cisneros was 49, of Queens, described in later coverage as Ecuadorian-born or of Ecuadorian family. She was a mother of three, separated or divorced, with a master’s-level psychology background and intermittent work for an immigration attorney. Police said she had no arrest history but a documented NYPD mental-health history: a 2018 incident in which she was described as belligerent, intoxicated, and screaming, and a 2019 incident in which she jumped in front of an E train in an apparent suicide attempt.
Relatives spoke publicly after the attack. Brother Patrick Peralta said her difficulties began years earlier with postpartum depression after the birth of a child and that he believed she had bipolar disorder. He said she received monthly psychiatric injections, had been more stable for several years, and had not shown aggression that he knew of. He said she reported feeling “fine” as recently as the Saturday before the attack and speculated she may have stopped the injections.
Mother María Cisneros said she had recently seen her daughter and noticed nothing that predicted the violence. She asked why officers shot her rather than taking her into custody and said perhaps she suffered a crisis. Father Mario Cisneros was reported as saying her mental health seemed to worsen after the birth of a child and that she had not been a violent person when he saw her about a week earlier. Relatives said one daughter is autistic and nonverbal and lives in a Brooklyn group home; two other daughters live in Florida with their father.
Confrontation and the Shooting
Police described the attacks as random and unprovoked. The 911 system received multiple calls around 4:24 p.m. reporting a woman with two knives stabbing people. Officers engaged her for roughly four minutes, ordered her to drop the knives, used Tasers without effect as she advanced, and then two officers fired.
Tisch said officers “did exactly what they’re trained to do” when a person comes at them waving two knives. Mayor Zohran Mamdani thanked officers for preventing the attack from becoming worse and promised an investigation and eventual release of body-camera footage. An internal investigation is standard in New York officer-involved shootings.
Tisch called the incident “an extraordinarily dangerous situation unfolding in the heart of Times Square, the crossroads of the world.” Body-worn cameras recorded the shooting. Police said they found no evidence of terrorism.
X Reacts to the Madness
The conversation split along several fault lines rather than settling on a single consensus.
One group treated the shooting as justified. Users pointed to the prior fatal stabbing and the visible advance with two knives. “Them tasers ain’t do shit but charge her up,” one reply read. Another said officers did not want to become a third victim. Some posts thanked the NYPD explicitly.
Others questioned why a group of officers could not take a single woman to the ground without gunfire. “All those cops together couldn’t have stopped her without a bullet?” one user asked. Another wrote, “She was crazy or insane. Did they really have to end her life?” Family comments later amplified this line when María Cisneros asked why officers shot her daughter.
A separate thread focused on the murdered victim. After Piacenti was identified as a Bank of America vice president and new mother on her first day back from leave, replies shifted toward grief and anger. The GoFundMe for her daughter became part of the online conversation, with users noting that the campaign had already raised hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Political and institutional arguments surfaced as well. Some users asked how Mayor Mamdani would speak about the officers versus the attacker. Others argued that New York’s public spaces are unsafe for ordinary commuters. International quote-tweets asked why police in other countries do not or cannot respond the same way.
Conclusion
The case sits at the intersection of several recurring public issues: random street violence in a high-profile location; police use of force against a person already known to the department as having mental-health contacts; the limits of Tasers against a moving subject holding edged weapons; and the capacity of mental-health treatment systems to prevent a sudden break in someone relatives described as recently stable.
The attack lasted seconds and occurred in a place designed and staffed for visibility and rapid police response. That a double stabbing still took place before officers intercepted the subject is used as evidence that even dense deployment cannot always prevent a first strike with a concealed blade. The subsequent four-minute standoff, failed Tasers, and shooting are used as evidence that once a person has already stabbed strangers and then advances on officers with two knives, lethal force is the remaining option.
Family statements asking why officers could not “grab her” are the competing framing. Both are now part of the public record.