Fame
A fatal stabbing in New York’s Times Square ended with officers shooting and killing the suspect after their Tasers failed to stop her.
New information about the encounter offers possible reasons why the stun guns did not incapacitate Pamela Cisneros, 49. At the same time, her relatives are raising questions about the way police responded.
Pamela attacked two people near West 41st Street and Seventh Avenue on Monday, August 31, 2026, leaving one of them dead. Footage from the confrontation showed her carrying two knives while officers repeatedly told her to put them down.
Retired NYPD detective and Taser specialist Artur Sadowski explained that several circumstances could have kept the devices from functioning properly. For a Taser to temporarily interrupt muscle control, both probes must establish sufficient contact and complete an electrical circuit.
According to Artur, Pamela’s motion, body fat, and cross-body purse may have disrupted that connection. One probe landed in the purse, while another seemingly struck her abdomen.
“She may have felt pain or muscle cramping in her abdomen but not enough to stop her from advancing,” Artur said.
As more information surfaced, Pamela’s mother, Maria, and her half-brother, Patrick Peralta, discussed the police confrontation and what they had observed in the period before the violence.
Maria, who is called “Tia Maria” by relatives, asked, “There were so many police. Why didn’t they grab her by the arm?” Patrick then explained what the family understood about Pamela’s condition before the incident.
“Yeah, she had mental problems. There were no signs this would have happened,” he said. “This was all of a sudden because she’s never been violent.”
Her father, Mario, gave a similar description. “I knew my daughter very well but I didn’t know what was going on with her. What I do know is she was getting injections,” he said.
Mario said Pamela had been receiving monthly medication injections to treat a mental illness. When he saw her one week before the attacks, he said she seemed fine.
He also emphasized that he had not known his daughter to be violent. “We don’t understand because the situation reversed,” Mario said.
Pamela’s Life Before the Attack
In another interview, Patrick said that before Monday, he had never seen Pamela hurt anyone except herself.
“I don’t know what was in her head,” he said. “I can’t tell you what she was thinking or if she just completely went blank. I don’t know where that rage came from.”
Patrick and Pamela were raised together by their mother in Jackson Heights. He recalled that when Pamela was around 5, she was a “happy-go-lucky kid” who often followed him.
Patrick said her mental health difficulties began roughly 20 years earlier, following the birth of the second of her three daughters. “She went off track after that,” he said.
Pamela’s middle daughter, who is autistic and nonverbal, resides in a Brooklyn group home and received frequent visits from her mother, Patrick said. Her two other daughters live in Florida with Pamela’s former husband, their father.
Living by herself in Woodside, Pamela had recently rejoined the workforce. Patrick said that after a stretch of unemployment, she began working as a lawyer’s administrative assistant about three months before the attack.
Her relatives normally saw her often. Pamela generally joined her parents for dinner almost nightly, though that pattern shifted shortly before the stabbings.
Patrick last met with his sister on August 8, during their father’s birthday celebration. Their mother talked to Pamela on Saturday, and Pamela reportedly said she was doing fine. However, an earlier post offered another glimpse into her thinking.
In a long post dated November 30, 2025, Pamela listed what she viewed as evidence of “the end times.” Her examples included “the disminished [sic] love of people to the point of stabbing others for no reason.”
Elsewhere in that message, she wrote that “the battlefield is in your mind” and mentioned people hearing voices urging them “to either kill someone or themselves.” Pamela blamed Satan for such thoughts and encouraged people to resist them by turning to God.
Patrick realized his sister was involved after cellphone video appeared in news coverage. “I was shocked,” he said. “I’m still numb. I saw it on the news last night. Something told me that she looks like my sister.”
He reached out to Midtown South and submitted his details. Patrick said officers returned his call at approximately 7:30 p.m.
The next evening, Patrick phoned Pamela’s two daughters in Florida to tell them what had happened. He also expressed sympathy for both stabbing victims and their loved ones.
“My entire family feels so sorry for the two people, the one that passed away and the one who was hurt,” Patrick said. “We are so sorry. We never thought this would happen.”
The family’s recollections provide further context for an attack that killed a finance executive and wounded another person.
The NYPD identified the woman who died as Erin Piacenti, a 32-year-old who suffered fatal injuries during the Monday afternoon stabbing.
Bank of America confirmed that one of its employees had been killed, and an internal company memo identified that employee as Erin.
The violence triggered a large emergency response in one of Manhattan’s most heavily traveled districts. The sequence that ended in Erin’s death had started one block to the south.
How the Two Stabbings Unfolded
The first person attacked was a 68-year-old man who had come out of the subway and was standing with his wife, waiting to cross near 41st Street and Seventh Avenue.
Police said Pamela approached them with two knives. According to an eyewitness account given to investigators, she initially carried the weapons in a red Target bag and then took them out.
Authorities said Pamela brandished the blades before stabbing the man in his side. She proceeded north along Seventh Avenue toward 42nd Street, where the second attack occurred roughly 20 seconds later.
Erin was walking close to 42nd Street on Seventh Avenue at around 4:30 p.m. She was approximately one block north of the place where the older man had been wounded.
After stabbing him, police said Pamela moved north and came upon Erin. Only about 20 seconds elapsed between the assaults, and Erin was stabbed in the abdomen.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch characterized the violence as a “random and unprovoked attack.” She added, “At this point in the investigation, we have no reason to believe this incident was an attack of terrorism.”
Once Erin had been stabbed, Pamela kept heading north on Seventh Avenue with both knives still in her hands, police said.
Officers confronted her between 42nd and 43rd streets. Commissioner Tisch said the standoff lasted around four minutes as police repeatedly instructed Pamela to drop the weapons.
The Fatal Police Confrontation
Pamela did not follow the officers’ commands. According to Commissioner Tisch, she said, “I’m not dropping anything. I would rather kill both of you.” Authorities said Pamela continued making threats to kill the officers.
Police used stun guns, but the devices seemingly did not stop her. When Pamela advanced toward them, two officers fired their weapons.
“This was an extraordinarily dangerous situation unfolding in the heart of Times Square, the crossroads of the world,” Commissioner Tisch said.
Police records showed mental health-related NYPD encounters involving Pamela in 2018 and 2019. She had no prior criminal record, and authorities described her as emotionally disturbed.
Commissioner Tisch and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani supported the officers’ decision to use deadly force. As is routine after a New York police shooting, the incident will undergo an investigation.
“I want to thank the NYPD officers who stepped in and prevented a horrific attack from becoming even worse,” Mayor Mamdani said.
Pamela was transported to Bellevue Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Both people she stabbed were taken to the same hospital; Erin died, while the 68-year-old man survived.
The surviving victim was a 68-year-old Rhode Island resident who was believed to be in New York visiting relatives. After hearing about the stabbing, his next-door neighbor August DiMartino spoke about its effect on the community.
The Surviving Victim’s Recovery
“Absolutely terrible, to just find out that something that horrible can happen to somebody that close to you really makes the community seem vulnerable,” August said.
The man’s relatives provided a short update by telephone on Tuesday, saying, “He seems fine.” He left Bellevue Hospital late Tuesday afternoon.
As the 68-year-old continued recovering, Erin’s death brought greater attention to the professional accomplishments and personal life she had established before the tragedy.
At Bank of America, Erin served as a vice president on the Business Selection & Conflicts team. Her professional profile states that she started the position in February 2025.
Erin Piacenti’s Career and Education
Before joining the bank, Erin was an associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell from October 2021 until January 2025. Her responsibilities there included work involving mergers and acquisitions.
During her time with Davis Polk, Erin completed a seven-month secondment in Morgan Stanley’s Legal & Compliance Division, lasting from August 2023 to February 2024.
Her association with Davis Polk began before she finished law school, when she joined the firm as a summer associate between June and August 2020.
Erin’s earlier experience included a legal internship with Major League Baseball from May through August 2019. Prior to pursuing law, she held roles at Bloomingdale’s and completed internships with Saks Fifth Avenue.
She received her J.D. from Fordham University School of Law in 2021, graduating magna cum laude and earning membership in the Order of the Coif.
While studying at Fordham, Erin took part in the Fordham Law Review and the Fordham Moot Court Board. Her activities also included the 46th Annual Kaufman Memorial Securities Law Competition and the UCLA Cyber Crimes Moot Court Competition.
Her honors included a Legal Writing Award, and she was named a Mary Daly Scholar. Before law school, Erin attended the University of Pennsylvania and completed a bachelor’s degree in political science in 2016.
After finishing at Fordham in 2021, Erin started as a Davis Polk associate that October. She later made the move to Bank of America in February 2025.
Erin was also celebrating milestones away from work. She and attorney Frank Piacenti had recently marked their second wedding anniversary.
A wedding photograph of the couple appeared as the profile image on Erin’s private account.
Property records showed that Erin and Frank purchased their first house in Chester, New Jersey, in September 2025. The town sits about 40 miles west of New York City.
Frank graduated cum laude, belonged to the Fordham Law Review, and now handles complex commercial litigation at Kasowitz, according to his firm biography.
Before going to Kasowitz, Frank clerked for U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore in Florida’s Southern District. In law school, he was also a judicial intern for U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in New York’s Southern District. He completed his bachelor’s degree at the University of Virginia in 2018.
Because both Erin and Frank had ties to Fordham, their shared connection to the university later figured into its response to her death.
Bank of America also publicly mourned Erin and remembered the role she played within the company.
In its statement, the bank said, “We are shocked and deeply saddened by the tragic loss of our colleague. She was a valued teammate who will be greatly missed. Our hearts go out to her family and all of her loved ones.”
Bank of America Remembers Erin
Matthew Koder, the president of Global Corporate & Investment Banking, addressed employees in an internal message and called Erin a “cherished teammate and friend.”
“Erin was a valued member of the Business Selection and Conflicts team, having joined the bank 18 months ago,” Koder wrote. “Her loss is being felt deeply by many.”
Koder added that the company’s security personnel were “fully engaged” in assisting the police investigation and safeguarding Bank of America’s employees and workplaces. The bank’s One Bryant Park location is close to Times Square.
The message underscored the impact of Erin’s death on colleagues as investigators continued reviewing the Times Square attack and the officers’ response.