The woman police shot and killed in Times Square Monday afternoon after she allegedly fatally stabbed one person and injured another had been experiencing mental health struggles for years, her brother said. But he said she recently seemed to be doing better.
And Patrick Peralta, 59, said he’d never known his younger sister Pamela Cisneros, 49, to become violent because of her mental health difficulties. Police have confirmed she had a “documented mental health history” with the department involving incidents in 2018 and 2019, but haven’t provided further details.
Peralta said he last saw Cisneros in early August for their stepfather’s birthday gathering, which she had helped organize. The next time he saw his sister was Monday night, in a video on the news, he said.
Even before he had a clear enough look at her to be sure, Peralta said, “the first thing in my head was, ‘Oh, no. Is that my sister?’ But then I wasn’t sure. I was hoping it wasn’t her,” Peralta told Gothamist Tuesday at the Queens building where Cisneros would often come to visit their mother and stepfather.
“But then more pictures went out, and then when I saw a frontal picture, I knew it was her,” he said.
NYPD officials say Cisneros was near 41st Street and Seventh Avenue around 4:30 p.m. Monday when a witness saw her pull two knives out of a Target bag. She approached a random 68-year-old man and stabbed him in the abdomen, then stabbed 32-year-old New Jersey resident Erin Piacenti about 20 seconds later, police said. Piacenti died at Bellevue Hospital, and the 68-year-old man was hospitalized in stable condition.
Police officers then approached Cisneros and spoke to her for four minutes, giving her numerous commands to drop the two knives she was carrying, according to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. Cisneros refused, and she told the officers, “I’m not dropping anything. I would rather kill both of you,” according to Tisch.
Tisch said multiple officers deployed Tasers, but they were ineffective and Cisneros continued advancing with the knives. Two officers then fired their guns, striking and ultimately killing her, officials said.
Peralta said the family is struggling to understand what propelled Cisneros — who had three daughters and a master’s degree in psychology — to carry out such an attack on two people who police said were strangers to her.
What Peralta does know, he said, is that his sister had long struggled with what he described as postpartum depression and bipolar disorder. He said those issues began more than 20 years ago after the birth of her second daughter.
“I think she was at home with two kids, so really probably stressed out,” he said.
At some point after the birth of her third daughter, Cisneros got divorced from her husband and moved to Florida with her kids, Peralta said. But life was hard for them there, so she came back to New York with her second daughter and enrolled her at a full-time care home in Brooklyn.
Cisneros attempted suicide in 2019, Peralta said. But after that, his sister’s mental health finally seemed to improve with the help of medication, he said.
“She was doing well, like for the last four years, five years. She was getting injections. She was never aggressive,” Peralta said, adding that she found work on and off with an attorney who specialized in immigration cases and lived in an apartment in Woodside. “She used to come and have dinner, and my mother and my stepfather cooked for her, mainly almost every afternoon and weekends.”
But last week, he said, the family became concerned when Cisneros didn’t show up as usual.
“It was weird because she didn’t come at all last week, and we were trying to call her,” Peralta said. “ My sister called her, and then my mother talked to her Saturday, and she said she was fine.”
Peralta said he’d watched part of the video of his sister’s interaction with police, and is not sure what they could have done differently.
“When it gets to that point, it’s kinda late … to talk to a person, you know?” he said.
“It was like a switch, and I don’t know what happened in her mind,” Peralta added.
Piacenti, the woman police said Cisneros fatally stabbed, was a vice president at Bank of America, the company confirmed in a statement Tuesday.
“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,” Bank of America spokesperson John Yiannacopoulos said.
Peralta said he and his family are also deeply saddened for Piacenti’s family and the man who was stabbed.
“We really don’t know how to express or how to explain why this happened,” he said. “Nothing that we can say is going to bring the person back. We feel their pain, too.”