The woman killed in a random stabbing in Times Square was a Bank of America employee, the bank confirmed on Tuesday (September 1, 2026). Police identified her and the attacker, who was killed in a confrontation with officers shortly after the rampage.
Officers shot and killed her after the stabbing. The attack happened in one of the busiest and most heavily policed areas in New York — next to a police station and just outside the building that hosts the city’s annual New Year’s Eve ball drop celebration. A man was fatally stabbed in the same area in May.
She had earned a law degree from Fordham Law School, graduating in 2021 alongside her husband, Frank Piacenti, according to the school. Police identified the attacker on Tuesday (September 1) as Pamela Cisneros, 49, of Queens. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch has said the woman had mental-health-related encounters with police in 2018 and 2019 but had no arrest record in New York City.
Fordham Law said in a statement it was heartbroken by her death.
The other victim was a 68-year-old man whose identity hasn’t been released. He was hospitalized, and no update on his condition was immediately available on Tuesday (September 1). He said Cisneros skipped family dinners last week but assured their mother she was OK in a phone call on Saturday (August 29).
Cisneros’ brother, Patrick Peralta, told the New York news outlet Gothamist that she had psychiatric problems for decades but wasn’t aggressive. The divorced mother of three had been taking medications and doing better in the last several years, working on and off in a legal office, according to Mr. Peralta, who said he last saw her at a relative’s birthday gathering early last month. “We really don’t know how to express or how to explain why this happened,” Mr. Peralta told Gothamist , expressing sympathy for Piacenti’s family and the injured man.
