It was a Monday afternoon in late August, the usual busy time in Midtown Manhattan. Tourists were taking pictures in front of the bright billboards, office workers were spilling out onto the sidewalks, and yellow taxis were weaving in and out of the traffic. Something shook up the normal flow of the afternoon at 4:24 p.m. near the corner of West 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue. Emergency vehicles rushed between skyscrapers, and the neighborhood and the country were briefly stunned.
Erin Piacenti, 32, was stabbed in the abdomen. She is a vise president at Bank of America and works in the business selection and conflicts unit. She did not make it. The attacker was named by the NYPD as 49-year-old Pamela Cisneros. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch later said that Cisneros had a history of mental illness. In her hands were two big knives. The attack also hurt a 68-year-old man who was in the city with his wife. Later, it was said that his condition was stable. There had been no fight before. There doesn’t seem to be a reason other than what Tisch called random and unprovoked violence.
Piacenti got her bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 2016. She then went to Fordham Law School and graduated with her husband, Frank, in 2021. Before she died, she had worked at Bank of America for about eighteen months. In every way, she was the start of something. A career that is still taking shape. A new marriage. Fordham Law was devastated by her death and said she was a much-loved member of the school’s family. Matthew Koder, president of global corporate and investment banking at Bank of America, wrote in an internal memo that she was a “cherished teammate and friend.” The bank’s main statement was short and clear: “She was a valued teammate who will be greatly missed.”
When police arrived, Cisneros still had the knives in his hands and was moving toward them. More than once, police used stun guns. They didn’t stop her. “I’m not dropping anything,” she reportedly told the police who arrived. I’d rather kill both of you.” Two police officers pulled guns on people. Cisneros was pronounced dead at the scene of the crime. Later, her dad, Mario Cisneros, talked to the press. He said he knew his daughter was having problems with her mental health and thought she was getting help. He said that she had a Ph.D. in psychology. He asked the victims and their families to forgive him by saying, “I am suffering like they are suffering.” When both sides of a tragedy are so sad, it’s hard to know what to do.
People in New York feel like things like this are both shocking and, after a while, so very familiar. In the lobby of a Midtown office building last year, a top Blackstone executive was shot and killed. In 2022, an unprovoked attack on a train going from Brooklyn to Manhattan killed a Goldman Sachs worker. And in 2024, Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was killed outside of a Manhattan hotel. It’s important to note that the city’s crime rates have been going down. The NYPD said that there were a record-low number of shootings and murders in the first seven months of this year. Facts are being used. It’s not always easy to connect data to how a city feels, especially in the days after something like this.
A student from a school close to Times Square, Reya Patel, said it best the next morning: “You wouldn’t think that would happen in the middle of Times Square.” It’s not as weak as that sentence makes it sound. There is no back alley in Times Square. It is one of the busiest, most watched, and most obvious spots in the whole country. However.
This girl named Erin Piacenti was from Chester, NJ. She was 32 years old. Her husband graduated from law school the same day she did. Still, it’s not clear if anything could have stopped what happened that Monday afternoon. It’s clear that her family, coworkers, and alma maters are still trying to deal with a loss that came out of the blue and for no reason.
