A woman armed with two knives fatally stabbed one person and wounded another in Times Square on Monday afternoon before NYPD officers shot and killed her after she charged at them, according to police and video of the incident.
The woman, identified as 49-year-old Pamela Cisneros of Queens, was surrounded by officers after the stabbings. Video shows her holding a knife in each hand as police attempt to get her to drop them. “I’m not dropping anything,” she tells the officers, adding, “I would rather kill both of you. I will kill you.”
She then began swinging her arms in wide circles with the knives still in hand. Officers deployed tasers, but Cisneros did not go down. Video shows her charging at the officers with the knives extended toward them, at which point officers opened fire, striking her. She fell to the ground bleeding from gunshot wounds. Officers detained her and began performing life-saving efforts, but she was later pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital.
Cisneros fatally stabbed 32-year-old Erin Piacenti, a Bank of America vice president who had recently celebrated her second wedding anniversary. A second victim, a 68-year-old man whose identity has not been released, was wounded. The entire sequence — from the stabbings to the fatal police shooting — unfolded over roughly 20 minutes, according to multiple reports.
A witness, Linda Ruiz, described the scene to the New York Daily News.
“I saw a guy bleeding profusely from his right leg. He was gushing blood, saying, ‘I need help. Help me.'”
“I went to get a cop on the corner and there was another lady on the floor. There was a lot of blood. She wasn’t conscious. The police were trying to resuscitate her. But she wasn’t moving. It was horrible.”
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Cisneros had a “documented mental health history” with the department, including two incidents in 2018 and 2019, but had never been arrested. Tisch described the attack as “unprovoked” and defended the officers’ response at a press conference Monday night.
“This was an extraordinarily dangerous situation unfolding in the heart of Times Square, the crossroads of the world. At any given moment, there are thousands of New Yorkers, commuters, tourists, families, workers moving through these streets.”
“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.”
