New York’s attorney general has opened an investigation into the deadly NYPD shooting of Pamela Cisneros, the woman seen on video stabbing people in Times Square this week, as is protocol in officer-involved civilian deaths, authorities announced Wednesday.
Authorities say Cisneros on Monday randomly stabbed a young woman and a 68-year-old man, then refused officers’ demands to drop the knives she held — one in each hand. Police shot her. She died at a hospital.
Meanwhile, there’s been an outpouring of national support for Erin Piacenti, the 32-year-old new mother cops say Cisneros killed on Piacenti’s very first day back from maternity leave.
Piacenti, a vice president at Bank of America, was walking through the busy tourist area in the heart of Manhattan Monday evening when she was stabbed in the abdomen.
Her daughter is just 5 months old.
Relatives of Piacenti established a crowdfunding campaign to support her baby girl, named Madison. As of Thursday afternoon, it had raised more than $500,000.
“Erin’s life was defined not by the circumstances of her death, but instead by the way she lived,” reads the campaign, organized by her husband Frank’s brother-in-law. “Erin was deeply devoted to her family and friends, exceptionally bright and accomplished, and was someone who brought warmth and energy to the people around her.”
“Erin and Frank celebrated their second wedding anniversary this summer, had just returned from a family road trip upon her passing, and were preparing to build a life together with their new daughter,” the crowdfunding campaign continued. “That life changed incomprehensibly in an instant.”
Cisneros, a 49-year-old from Queens, had a documented history of mental health concerns dating back to 2018 and 2019, but she had no criminal history. In 2018, she was reportedly screaming and acting erratically at a building on Lexington Avenue on the East Side of Manhattan. In 2019, she apparently tried to or claimed she was going to take her life by jumping in front of the subway at Union Turnpike in Queens.
The first victim, from Rhode Island, was taken to Bellevue Hospital where police said he was recovering and is expected to survive.
