The mother of a Queens woman who fatally stabbed a new mother and seriously injured an elderly father during a frightening knife attack in Times Square is asking why police did not try to physically restrain her daughter before officers shot her dead as she moved toward them armed with knives.
Pamela Cisneros, 49, stabbed 32-year-old Erin Piacenti and 68-year-old Tak Kam on Monday afternoon, authorities said. Cellphone video later showed Cisneros surrounded by NYPD officers while holding a large knife in each hand and threatening to kill them.
Officers tried to use Tasers, but they did not stop her. The video shows Cisneros then charging toward police while waving the knives, leading two officers to fire their weapons.
“There were so many police… why didn’t they grab her by the arm?” Cisneros’ mother, who declined to give her name, told Fox 5 News in Spanish.
Cisneros, a mother of three, was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.
Her brother told The Post on Tuesday that Cisneros had what he described as bipolar disorder, but said she had been in treatment in recent years and had “never showed any aggressiveness.”
“I don’t know what happened,” said Patrick Peralta, 59, adding that his sister had achieved some stability with medication in recent years and had said she felt “fine” as recently as Saturday.
Cisneros, who lived in Queens, had a documented history of mental health-related encounters with police, including a suicide attempt.
Cisneros drew the attention from NYPD cops in December 2018 when she was belligerent, intoxicated and screaming along Lexington Avenue, sources said. She then tried to kill herself in March 2019 by jumping in front of an E train in Queens, sources said.
Court records show that Cisneros’ marriage fell apart around this time, with her husband filing for divorce in Hillsborough County, Florida, during 2020. The divorce was finalized last year.
The unprovoked stabbings and subsequent shooting all happened within a roughly 20-minute window beginning around 4:30 p.m. Monday and sent panicked tourists and commuters running for safety.
Cisneros had whipped out two knives from a red Target bag and stabbed the first victim, Tak Kam, a 68-year-old dad from Rhode Island, in the abdomen as he exited the subway on West 41st Street and was waiting to cross the street, police said.
She then continued up to 42nd Street and seconds later fatally stabbed Piacenti — a vice president at Bank of America who had just returned from maternity leave.
The slain new mom from Chester, NJ, had posted a touching photo just four days before her murder of herself smiling broadly while holding her infant and standing with her husband. She wrote in the caption how happy she was.
The baby had recently been baptized and Piacenti and her husband, whom she just celebrated her second wedding anniversary with, had been taking her time off to travel.
