“Why didn’t they grab her?”: the painful plea of Pamela Cisneros’ mother, the woman shot dead in Times Square
The mother of the 49-year-old woman who was shot dead by New York Police officers after stabbing two people in Times Square questioned the officers' actions.
This Monday, August 31, at around 4:30 p.m., a 49-year-old woman spread panic among citizens and tourists in New York . According to the authorities, Cisneros was carrying two knives and first attacked a 68-year-old man, whom she wounded in the abdomen.
Pamela Cisneros and a resident of the Queens district, shocked everyone by pulling a knife out of a grocery bag and, without hesitation, attacked two people in the abdomen in just 20 seconds. The male victim is in stable condition, according to the New York police. The second victim, a 32-year-old woman, suffered more serious injuries to her abdomen and died at the same hospital.
After the attack, the assailant continued up the street until several officers surrounded her and tried to get her to drop the weapons.
However, Cisneros refused and also threatened to attack the police. The officers even, seeing their lives in danger, first used stun guns. Seeing that they were not effective, they finally opened fire when the woman got even closer to them. The attacker was taken to the hospital, where she later died.
Pamela's mother questioned why the officers resorted to firearms without first trying to physically restrain her. In an interview with Fox 5 News, the woman publicly questioned the NYPD 's actions following her daughter's death and asked: “There were so many police officers… why didn’t they grab her by the arm?”
The situation takes on another dimension because of Cisneros's mental health history. The NYPD confirmed that she had a documented history of interventions related to her mental health in 2018 and 2019, although she had no prior arrests.
Cisneros's brother described her improvement and the family's concern in the days leading up to it
" Patrick Peralta, 59, Cisneros's brother, gave a statement at the place where his mother and stepfather lived and where Cisneros used to spend time. He said he had never seen his sister act violently because of her mental health difficulties. “She was never aggressive,” he emphasized.
According to her brother, Cisneros had gone through difficult years, but in the most recent period her situation seemed to have stabilized.
“She was doing fine, in the last four or five years. She was receiving injections,” Peralta said.
During that period, according to him, his sister lived in an apartment in the Woodside neighborhood and worked intermittently with a lawyer specializing in immigration cases. She had three daughters and a master’s degree in Psychology.
The brother said that the family does not understand what happened. “It was like a switch, and I don’t know what happened in her mind”, he said, adding “We don’t know how to express or explain why this happened. Nothing we say is going to bring that person back. We also feel their pain”
The case left two stories marked by the same episode. On the one hand, the death of Piacenti , a young Bank of America executive who had just returned from maternity leave. On the other, the death of Cisneros, whose family is trying to understand how a woman they describe as stable in recent years ended up carrying out an attack with two knives and dying under police gunfire.
The investigation remains in the hands of specialists and will determine whether the officers' actions were carried out within the protocols established for these circumstances.
