A Random Stab in Times Square Killed a 32-Year-Old Lawyer on Her Lunch Break

Twenty Seconds, Two Victims, One Red Target Bag

According to the NYPD, the 911 calls started coming in at approximately 4:24 p.m. on Monday, reporting a woman armed with two knives stabbing people along Seventh Avenue in Times Square. Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the attack began near West 41st Street, where Pamela Cisneros approached a 68-year-old man who had just exited the subway with his wife. A witness told investigators that Cisneros removed the two knives from a red Target bag before waving them at the man and stabbing him in the right side of his abdomen.

Twenty seconds later, Cisneros continued north up Seventh Avenue toward 42nd Street and stabbed Piacenti in the abdomen. Both attacks, Tisch told reporters, appear to have been completely random and unprovoked. There was no prior altercation. No apparent connection to terrorism. No connection between the victims and the attacker. Just a woman with two knives and two people who happened to be standing on Seventh Avenue at the wrong moment.

The 68-year-old man, CBS News reports, was visiting his son in Brooklyn with his wife and was on his way home when Cisneros found him. He is currently in stable condition at Bellevue Hospital. He had nothing to do with any of this. Neither did Erin Piacenti.

Four Minutes, Two Tasers, Eleven Words

After stabbing Piacenti, Cisneros kept walking up Seventh Avenue, still holding both knives, until she encountered responding officers between 42nd and 43rd streets. What followed, according to the NYPD, was a four-minute standoff during which officers ordered Cisneros repeatedly to drop the weapons.

She refused. According to Commissioner Tisch, Cisneros told officers, "I'm not dropping anything. I would rather kill both of you." She then repeated, "I will kill you." Officers deployed tasers. Multiple times. They were ineffective. Cisneros advanced toward the officers, and two of them opened fire. She was taken to Bellevue Hospital and pronounced dead.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani confirmed the shooting was captured on police body cameras, which will be released at a later date.

Who Was Erin Piacenti

NBC News reports that Bank of America confirmed Piacenti held the title of vice president within Business Selection and Conflicts in Global Corporate and Investment Banking. She and her husband, Frank, both graduated from Fordham University's law school in 2021. Fordham released a statement expressing condolences to Frank and to the families of everyone who knew Erin.

Her cousin, Katie Guiltinan, spoke to NBC News on Tuesday through tears. "It's unbelievable," Guiltinan said. "She was wonderful." Guiltinan said she hoped the coverage would focus on Piacenti rather than on Cisneros. Bank of America put out the kind of corporate statement these situations demand, calling Piacenti "a valued teammate" who would be greatly missed, which is almost certainly true and almost certainly not the thing her family is thinking about right now.

She was 32 years old. She was walking through Times Square on a Monday afternoon. That is the whole story of how she died.

What the NYPD Knew About Pamela Cisneros

Cisneros, 49, lived in Queens. She had no criminal history and had never been arrested. What she did have, Commissioner Tisch confirmed, was a documented mental health history with the NYPD going back to at least 2018, with one incident that year and one in 2019.

That is more or less where the public record ends. Two contacts with the mental health system, years ago, and then nothing until Monday afternoon in Times Square. NBC News notes that law enforcement sources said the attack had no connection to organized terrorism, which is presumably reassuring to someone, though it does nothing whatsoever for Erin Piacenti or the 68-year-old man currently recovering at Bellevue.

The two knives Cisneros used were recovered at the scene.

Times Square the Morning After

CBS News talked to people in Times Square on Tuesday morning, the day after the attack. A student named Reya Patel summed up the feeling pretty cleanly: "It was actually kind of scary because I go to school right here, so you know, seeing that you wouldn't think that would happen in the middle of Times Square."

A tourist from Boston named Melinda Puzon told CBS News she heard the shots and saw crowds of people in the street. "It's very shocking," she said. The tourist district kept moving, as it does, because forty million people a year pass through Times Square and it does not stop for much. On Tuesday morning it did not stop for this, either.