When Pamela Cisneros launched a knife attack in New York City’s Times Square on Aug. 31, she left a 68-year-old man critically wounded and a young mother dead before police shot her dead in a confrontation that was captured on video. But the aftermath of the violence has sparked a separate battle over how the public and the media are framing the incident.
According to WABC-TV, police said Cisneros stabbed her two victims within 20 seconds of each other near 41st Street and Seventh Avenue. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch identified the surviving victim as 68-year-old Tak Kam, a Rhode Island father who had just exited the subway and was waiting to cross the street with his wife when Cisneros allegedly pulled two knives from a bag and stabbed him in the abdomen in what Tisch called “a random and unprovoked attack.”
Cisneros then moved toward 42nd Street, where she encountered 32-year-old Erin Piacenti, a Bank of America executive and mother of a newborn daughter, and allegedly stabbed her in the abdomen. Piacenti died from her injuries.
Police Standoff and Shooting
After the attacks, witnesses flagged down officers at an NYPD substation, and police engaged Cisneros in a four-minute standoff. Officers repeatedly commanded her to drop the knives and deployed a taser without effect. In the confrontation, Cisneros told officers, “I’m not dropping anything. I would rather kill both of you… I will kill you,” according to reports. Only after she charged at officers did one fire a single shot, striking her in the stomach and killing her.
The incident was captured on video and quickly spread across social media. Some commentators and online observers began referring to the knives as “butter knives” or “putty knives,” and some police watchdogs accused officers of overreacting.
Media Coverage and Sympathy Debate
The New York Times has focused on Cisneros’s background, speaking with her father, Mario Cisneros, 78, who described her long struggle with mental health issues, including an inability to hold a job, a failed marriage, a custody battle, and at least one suicide attempt. He said his daughter had been having issues with unspecified medication and had recently said she did not want to rely on medication to feel normal.
The Times article, in the view of critics, framed the killer as a sympathetic figure and suggested she was as much a victim as those she attacked. Meanwhile, the New York Post focused on the actual victims, particularly Piacenti.
Piacenti was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Fordham University School of Law. She worked as Vice President of Business Selection and Conflicts at Bank of America in New York. According to a GoFundMe page, Piacenti died on her first day back to work after maternity leave. She was about to celebrate her second wedding anniversary and was the mother of a baby girl.
Social Media Reaction
Some social media users have gone further, with posts suggesting Piacenti deserved what happened because she worked for a bank. One widely shared post read, “youre not gonna get me to feel bad for the vice president of bank of america lmao.”
This response has drawn sharp criticism from those who see it as part of a broader pattern of left-wing sympathizing with perpetrators of violence. The article points to other recent cases, including the August 2025 stabbing of Iryna Zarutska on a light rail car in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the September 2025 assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University, where some leftists have blamed the victims or mocked their deaths.
In the Times Square case, the author argues that the left would rather focus on Cisneros’s mental health and circumstances than on the lives she destroyed. “If Cisneros had used a gun to kill someone, we all know it would have been the gun’s fault, not hers,” the piece says, noting that in this case, some are attributing blame to no one in particular, or to society at large.
The debate highlights a deepening cultural divide over how violence is reported and memorialized, with the victims’ families and friends left to grieve while the larger political battle plays out in public view.
Source: pjmedia.com — https://pjmedia.com/tim-o-brien/2026/09/03/knives-out-in-times-square-pity-for-killers-has-lefts-fingerprints-all-over-it-n4956843
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Do your own research and consult a licensed professional before making financial decisions.
