Bank of America executive Erin Piacenti has been identified as the victim of an unprovoked fatal daytime stabbing in New York City’s Times Square on Aug. 31.
Piacenti, 32, of Chester, New Jersey, was vice president of business selection and conflicts at the bank. She died from her injuries shortly after the attack at about 4:30 p.m.
“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,” a corporate spokesperson said in a statement emailed to The Epoch Times.
Piancenti’s recent social media posts show she was recently married. She had earned a law degree from Fordham Law School in 2021.
New York Police Department officials identified Pamela Cisneros, 49, of Queens, as the perpetrator of the knife attack. Cisneros was pronounced dead at the hospital after she refused to surrender her weapons and attacked police, prompting two officers to shoot her, according to the NYPD.
Cisneros has a documented mental health history with the NYPD, with police encounters in 2018 and 2019, according to the department.
A 68-year-old man was also injured in the attack and is recovering at the hospital. The man had just come out of a subway station and was waiting to cross the street with his wife when he was stabbed in the stomach, NYPD Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters at a news conference hours after the attack.
Police say the random knife attacks occurred within a 20-second span in the downtown commercial district. Cisneros pulled out two knives from a shopping bag and waved them in the air before first stabbing the man in what appeared to be a random and unprovoked attack.
Cisneros then walked up Seventh Avenue toward 42nd Street and stabbed Piacenti in the abdomen in the second unprovoked attack. Piacenti was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where she was pronounced dead, Tisch said.
Cisneros then apparently continued on Seventh Avenue still armed with the knives.
About 10 officers surrounded her and gave her numerous commands over a four-minute period to drop the knives. Instead of dropping the weapons, she told the officers she would kill them, Tisch said.
Tasers were used on Cisneros but were ineffective. A video, originally shared by Austen TV, shows the tasers not working on the woman as she runs toward officers with the knives out in front of her.
Two officers fired weapons and shot the suspect, who was pronounced dead at the hospital.
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