A regular Monday unexpectedly turned fatal for one and life-threatening for several other New Yorkers on August 31, 2026, as Pamela Cisneros, 49, wielded two knives at a crowded Times Square.
After brutally attacking an elderly man and taking the life of a young woman, Cisneros, a mother of three from Queens, was cornered by NYPD officers at around 4:30 p.m. and was asked to drop her weapons.
Highlights
- On Monday, Pamela Cisneros stabbed two people, terrorized a busy Times Square, and threatened NYPD officers before the cops used lethal force.
- Among her victims was a 32-year-old woman who was a Vice President at Bank of America.
- Cisneros’ brother later opened up about her mental health struggles and a past attempt at ending her life.
Videos taken by eyewitnesses showed her issuing a chilling warning and charging at the cops before succumbing to their discharged firearms.
Now, with the clips of Cisneros’ final confrontation with the police going viral, the identity of the woman she fatally stabbed has surfaced, and she had just celebrated a personal milestone.
“We are shocked and deeply saddened by the tragic loss of our colleague,” the woman’s employers said in a statement.
Times Square knife attacker’s female victim was a VP at Bank of America
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a press conference on Monday night that Pamela Cisneros’ first victim was a 68-year-old man, whose identity has not been revealed.
Cisneros pulled out two knives from a red Target bag and impaled the man in the abdomen as he exited the subway on West 41st Street and was waiting to cross the street.
He was taken to the hospital, and no update was shared as of Tuesday, September 1.
She found her second victim up near 42nd Street, where she took the life of 32-year-old Erin Piacenti, of Chester, New Jersey, in an “unprovoked attack.”
Piacenti was a young executive at Bank of America, working as the Vice President of Business Selection and Conflicts, a source told The Post after her tragic demise. She was stabbed a few blocks from Bank of America's office tower in New York.
Her demise comes amid heightened scrutiny of violence involving the financial industry and has been compared by the media to the December 2024 assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, for which Luigi Mangione was charged and pleaded guilty.
The insider also said that she had celebrated her second wedding anniversary on August 10.
She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2016 and earned a law degree from Fordham Law School in 2021, alongside her husband, Frank Piacenti, PBS reported. Fordham Law told the outlet they were heartbroken by her passing.
NYPD cops opened fire on Pamela Cisneros after she refused to drop her knives and attacked them
After stabbing the unnamed man and Piacenti, Pamela Cisneros was surrounded by NYPD officers near Times Square.
According to Tisch, Cisneros was given “numerous commands” to drop the knives, but she pushed back with a threat: “I’m not dropping anything. I would rather k**l both of you. I’ll k**l you.”
Videos show that multiple officers then attempted to discharge their tasers, but she refused to go down.
She then wound up her arms and charged at the cops, knives first.
At this point, two officers opened fire, striking Cisneros in the chest. She fell back, bleeding out from the wound.
Officers handcuffed her and began life-saving measures. She was later pronounced deceased at Bellevue Hospital.
“Our officers were confronted with a rapidly evolving threat with countless innocent people around them. In that moment, they did what we trained them to do,” Tisch said.
Cisneros’ motive behind the violent attacks is not yet known, but authorities have ruled out any terror cell ties.
Pamela Cisneros had long suffered from mental health issues
Pamela Cisneros had long battled with her mental health, but never displayed any destructive streaks and was a “happy-go-lucky kid,” according to her brother Patrick Peralta, 59.
“She never showed any aggressiveness or being violent. I don’t know what happened,” Peralta told The Post after the incident.
Peralta had seen the news before realizing it was his sister, and had brushed it off as “typical New York c**p,” he said. When he found out the truth, he could barely believe it.
He said that her mental health problems started about two decades ago, after giving birth to the second of her three daughters. The child was later diagnosed with autism and lives in a group home in Brooklyn, and the other two children live in Florida with their father, Cisneros’ ex-husband.
In 2019, she attempted to take her own life by throwing herself on the subway tracks and was officially diagnosed with a mental health issue afterward, he revealed.
“I think bipolar, but I don’t know what else was going on,” he noted, adding that she took monthly injections for psychological treatment. “I think maybe she stopped the injection she was getting, and that caused her to act the way she was.”
Peralta last saw Cisneros in early August for their stepfather’s birthday, and their mother talked to her over the phone last Saturday, August 29.
“There was no sign something was wrong,” he said, but added that she had not visited their mother last week, which was not normal for her.
"Should've been locked up in a psychiatric facility," a reader wrote
