Times Square Tragedy Victim's Family Releases Emotional Statement After Her Death – Here's What They Said

What should have been the beginning of an exciting new chapter became an unimaginable loss overnight. In the days that followed, one deeply personal detail revealed where the victim's loved ones are now placing their hopes for the future.

Behind the headlines surrounding a horrifying day in Times Square was a life that had only recently entered an especially joyful new chapter. Now, those who knew Erin Piacenti best have shared what they want people to remember about her.

Piacenti was just 32 when she was killed on August 31, 2026, in what her family would later describe as a "random, senseless, and unprovoked attack."

A Sudden Attack in the Heart of Times Square

The violence unfolded around 4:24 p.m. near West 41st Street and Seventh Avenue on Monday, according to a Daily News report.

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said 49-year-old Queens resident Pamela Cisneros approached a 68-year-old man who had just emerged from a nearby subway station and was waiting to cross the street with his wife.

A witness told investigators that Cisneros removed two knives from a red Target bag before attacking the man, stabbing him in the abdomen. Within roughly 20 seconds, police said, the violence continued.

Cisneros moved north toward West 42nd Street, where she allegedly then stabbed a 32-year-old woman in the abdomen. The woman would later be identified as Piacenti. Officers confronted Cisneros near an NYPD substation around West 43rd Street, beginning an approximately four-minute standoff.

According to Tisch, officers repeatedly ordered Cisneros to drop the knives. She allegedly responded, "I'm not dropping anything. I would rather kill both of you. I will kill you." Police attempted to use a taser as Cisneros approached officers while holding both knives. When those attempts failed, two officers opened fire.

"This was an extraordinarily dangerous situation unfolding in the heart of Times Square, the crossroads of the world," Tisch said, adding that the officers had been facing "a rapidly evolving threat with countless innocent people around them."

The two stabbing victims and Cisneros were transported to Bellevue Hospital. Piacenti and Cisneros died, while the male victim was expected to survive. Mayor Zohran Mamdani asked New Yorkers to keep the surviving victim in their thoughts while thanking officers for intervening before the violence could escalate further.

Two knives were recovered from the scene, police said. The afternoon attack stunned people who happened to be nearby. Construction Worker Jorge Disla said he recorded Cisneros during the confrontation with officers and recalled police repeatedly telling her to put down the knives. Another witness, Linda Ruiz, recalled encountering a man bleeding heavily and pleading for help.

"I went to get a cop on the corner and there was another lady on the floor. She was stabbed in the back or in the chest. I couldn't tell. There was a lot of blood. She wasn't conscious. The police were trying to resuscitate her. But she wasn't moving. It was horrible," Ruiz explained.

Video footage later shared by The New York Times shows Cisneros holding knives during the confrontation with officers, as well as scenes from the aftermath of the stabbings. But as investigators worked to understand what had happened, attention increasingly shifted toward the woman whose life had been taken.

Erin Piacenti Had Just Returned from Maternity Leave

Piacenti was not simply another commuter passing through Midtown. According to The New York Times, the 32-year-old Bank of America vice president was in her first week back at work after five months of maternity leave.

She had reportedly been walking home from work through Times Square when she was attacked seemingly at random. Just four days earlier, Piacenti had shared what would become a heartbreaking final social-media update.

In it, she posted a family photograph while holding her newborn daughter beside her husband, Frank. She wrote about how grateful she was for the five months she had spent on maternity leave, during which her daughter had recently been baptized.

The young family had also spent time traveling together, visiting Long Beach Island in New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Maine. The joyful update now stands in painful contrast to what happened only days later. Piacenti's Instagram account is private, and her profile image features her alongside her husband.

The couple lived in Chester, New Jersey, and both graduated from Fordham Law School in 2021. Bank of America said it is "shocked and deeply saddened" by the loss of its colleague, describing Piacenti as a valued teammate who will be greatly missed.

Her death has also deeply affected the community where she lived. "This definitely shakes us up," Chester resident Megan O'Hara said, noting that many residents in the area commute to New York. "It's like a family member passed away," she added.

Dan Matlaga, who previously worked in Manhattan, focused on the cruel randomness of what happened. "She was just somebody on their way home from work," he said. "This is heartbreaking."

A Standout Law Student with Another Side Few May Have Known About

Piacenti's achievements stretched well beyond her career at Bank of America. She attended the University of Pennsylvania before attending Fordham Law, where she met her then-future husband.

Piacenti graduated magna cum laude and was inducted into the Order of the Coif, an honor society recognizing accomplished law graduates.

Fordham Law Dean Joseph Landau remembered her warmly in a message to alumni. "Erin was a vibrant and cherished member of the Fordham Law family," he wrote, praising her "academic devotion, sharp legal mind, warmth and generosity to her peers."

During her final year at Fordham, Piacenti served as editor of the Kaufman Competition, an annual securities-law tournament involving teams from schools across the country. Former fellow Fordham student Ashley Slater explained just how demanding the responsibility was.

"It takes someone who is highly dedicated, very intelligent and very organized," Slater said. "It's a very difficult position, and she made it look easy." Yet there was another part of Piacenti's life that showed a more creative side. While at the University of Pennsylvania, she belonged to an a cappella group called Dischord and appeared in videos of its performances.

An April 2015 YouTube performance shows Piacenti performing as a soloist with background vocalists on Ariana Grande's "Love Me Harder." It is a small glimpse into the life she lived long before becoming a lawyer, executive, wife, and mother.

Erin Piacenti's Family Breaks Its Silence After the Tragedy

But in the days after her death, Piacenti's loved ones made clear that neither her career nor the horrifying circumstances surrounding her final moments could fully explain who she really was.

In an emotional message shared through a GoFundMe created to support the family, her relatives broke their silence and asked people to remember Piacenti for the life she built rather than the way it ended.

"On August 31, Erin Piacenti, a beloved wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend, was killed in a random, senseless, and unprovoked attack in Times Square," the message began. "She was just 32 years old."

The family's statement then turned to perhaps the most heartbreaking part of Piacenti's story: the baby girl she had spent years dreaming of having. "Five months earlier, Erin and her husband, Frank, had welcomed their first child, Madison," the message revealed. "Becoming a mother was Erin's lifelong ambition, and Madison gave her the greatest possible joy."

They also confirmed the cruel timing surrounding that day: "August 31 was Erin's first day returning to work after her maternity leave."

'Erin's Life Was Defined' by How She Lived

Rather than allow the attack to become the defining chapter of her story, Piacenti's loved ones deliberately redirected attention toward the woman they knew.

"Erin's life was defined not by the circumstances of her death, but instead by the way she lived," their statement continued.

They remember her as someone "deeply devoted to her family and friends, exceptionally bright and accomplished," who brought "warmth and energy" to those around her. Her loved ones also revisited the impressive path that had taken Piacenti from Penn to Bloomingdale's, then to Fordham Law, Davis Polk, and eventually Bank of America.

But even those accomplishments, her family emphasized, told only a fraction of the story. "Erin's career accomplishments, however, speak to only a small portion of who she was," they said.

"To the people who knew and loved her, Erin was a thoughtful daughter and sister, a loyal friend, a devoted partner and companion in every aspect of Frank's life, and, most recently, an incredibly loving mother to Madison."

A Young Family's Future 'Changed Incomprehensibly'

Piacenti and her husband had reached another milestone shortly before the tragedy. The couple celebrated their second wedding anniversary during the summer and had recently returned from a family road trip. With their five-month-old daughter beside them, they had been preparing for an entirely different future.

Then came the family's devastating summation: "That life changed incomprehensibly in an instant." Those words also explain why the fundraiser is focused not simply on memorializing Piacenti, but on the little girl she left behind.

Keeping Piacenti's Memory Alive for Her Daughter

The family said the fund was established specifically to help Madison and her future: "It offers the many people who loved Erin, knew her, worked with her, or have simply been moved by her story a way to honor Erin by helping care for the daughter she loved more than anything."

The family's hope extends far beyond financial assistance, as they want Piacenti's little girl to grow up knowing exactly who her mother was:

"Funds raised will be dedicated to supporting Madison as she grows up surrounded by the family, friends, stories, and memories that will allow her to know just how remarkable her mother was."

The outpouring of love for the family and the response to the GoFundMe page has already been considerable. With a fundraising goal of $750,000, the campaign has so far collected more than $460,000.

The fundraiser was organized by Frank's brother-in-law, Shray, in consultation with Frank and Piacenti's family. According to the page, all money raised will go directly to Piacenti's husband to support their daughter.

For Piacenti's loved ones, however, the message behind the fundraiser appears just as important as the money itself.

A daughter who will grow up without her mother will instead grow up surrounded by her stories, her memories, and the people who knew her best — ensuring that the most terrible day of Erin Piacenti's life never becomes the only thing by which she is remembered.

The Second Victim from the Times Square Tragedy

For a time, the surviving victim was described publicly only as a 68-year-old man. His identity has since emerged. The second victim was Tak Kam, a Rhode Island resident who had traveled to New York City to visit his son.

Kam had reportedly just left a subway station and was standing with his wife, waiting to cross the street, when Cisneros approached. According to USA Today, investigators were told that Cisneros pulled two knives from the red Target bag before waving them and stabbing Kam in the right side of his abdomen.

He was transported to Bellevue Hospital and was listed in stable condition. Authorities subsequently said Kam was expected to recover. Like Piacenti, there was no indication in the information released that Kam had any prior connection with Cisneros.

The two victims were attacked in rapid succession, turning what appeared to be an ordinary afternoon for both into something unimaginable.

Police Had Encountered Pamela Cisneros Years Earlier

Questions quickly emerged about Cisneros and whether authorities had previously encountered her. As it turns out, they had. Police Commissioner Tisch said Cisneros had two previous encounters with the NYPD, although she had no New York City criminal record. The first came on December 20, 2018.

Officers reportedly found Cisneros screaming and behaving belligerently on Lexington Avenue near East 49th Street in Midtown Manhattan. Police determined that she was intoxicated. Less than four months later, on March 6, 2019, Cisneros was involved in another serious incident.

According to the police report, she attempted to jump in front of a southbound E train at the Kew Gardens-Union Turnpike subway station in Queens. She survived. Those incidents became even more significant after Cisneros' family began describing what they said had been a decades-long struggle with mental illness.

Her Brother Says the Family Never Expected Violence

Cisneros' brother, Patrick Peralta, spoke about his sister's history and her final years in a separate Daily News interview. Peralta said his sister had dealt with mental-health problems for approximately two decades, including multiple hospitalizations, post-partum depression, and the 2019 suicide attempt with the subway-track incident.

But he insisted that what happened in Times Square was unlike anything he had known her to do before. "I don't know what was in her head," Peralta said. "I can't tell you what she was thinking or if she just completely went blank. I don't know where that rage came from."

Peralta remembered his younger sister very differently from the images that later circulated from Times Square. "She was a happy-go-lucky kid," he recalled. He said her mental-health difficulties developed after she gave birth to the second of her three daughters. "She went off track after that," he said.

According to Peralta, Cisneros had been hospitalized several times and received psychiatric treatment. He said she had previously taken medication through monthly injections because she struggled to consistently take daily medication.

"For the last six years now, she was getting injections and nothing was wrong," he said. "As long as she got the medication, she was fine." Peralta also noted he had recently learned that Cisneros had begun administering the injections herself.

He therefore wondered whether she had missed doses, though that was his speculation and has not been established as the cause of the attack. Cisneros had reportedly lived alone in Woodside and had been out of work before securing a job approximately three months earlier as an administrative assistant for a lawyer.

Her family had also noticed something unusual shortly before the incident. Peralta said Cisneros normally ate dinner with their parents almost every evening, but she did not show up during the week before the attack, prompting relatives to call and check on her.

He last saw his sister on August 8 for their father's birthday. "She was fine. Normal," he said. Their mother spoke with Cisneros by phone on Saturday, according to Peralta. Cisneros reportedly told her that she was fine.

A Facebook Message from Months Earlier Takes on an Eerie New Meaning

There was another detail that resurfaced following the attack. Months earlier, Cisneros had published a lengthy Facebook message centered on religion, what she described as the "end times," and signs she believed were visible in the world around her.

Among wars, earthquakes, homelessness, drug use, and other societal problems, Cisneros referred to what she described as "the disminished [sic] love of people to the point of stabbing others for no reason." The wording is particularly unsettling in light of what police say happened months later.

Elsewhere in the post, she wrote extensively about repentance, salvation, hatred, spiritual warfare, and what she described as voices telling people to harm themselves or others. At another point, however, Cisneros urged people to stop hating each other, writing, "Life is too short to be hating on each other."

She concluded by encouraging people to help others and "be an agent of love." Those contradictory themes have taken on new significance after the fatal encounter, though authorities have not publicly established that the post explains her actions months later.

Her Family Learned What Happened from the Viral Footage

Peralta said he recognized Cisneros after seeing cellphone footage of the Times Square confrontation on television. "I was shocked," he said. "I'm still numb." Something about the woman in the footage made him think she resembled his sister, prompting him to contact the Midtown South precinct.

Police later confirmed the devastating news. Peralta was then faced with telling two of Cisneros' daughters, who live in Florida with their father, what had happened. Her third daughter, who Peralta said is autistic and nonverbal, lives in a Brooklyn group home and had regularly been visited by her mother.

Cisneros' family expressed sorrow not only over her death, but also for the strangers she was accused of attacking. "My entire family feels so sorry for the two people, the one that passed away and the one who was hurt," Peralta said. "We are so sorry. We never thought this would happen."

For Piacenti's family, meanwhile, the tragedy came at what should have been an especially joyful time. She had a five-month-old daughter, had recently returned to a career in which she had already risen to vice president, and had shared her gratitude for the months she had just spent with her new family. Four days after that final celebration, a routine walk home from work became her last.

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text "help" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741, or go to suicidepreventionlifeline.org.