The victim randomly murdered by a mentally ill woman on a stabbing spree in Times Square has been identified as a 32-year-old New Jersey woman.
Erin Piacenti, of Chester, N.J., died in Monday afternoon’s bloody rampage when Pamela Cisneros, a 49-year-old Queens woman with a history of mental illness, pulled two kitchen knives out of a Target bag and started stabbing strangers.
Cisneros first attacked a 68-year-old man waiting to cross the street with his wife at W. 41st St. near Seventh Ave. at 4:24 p.m., cops said, plunging a knife in his abdomen. He survived.
Within 20 seconds, she headed north to W. 42nd St. and attacked Piacenti, stabbing her in the abdomen as well.
Police surrounded Cisneros near an NYPD substation by W. 43rd St.
“I’m not dropping anything. I would rather kill both of you. I will kill you,” she told the officers during a tense four-minute standoff, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Monday. Police tried to subdue her with a Taser before officers opened fire, killing her.
Startling cell phone videos shot by bystanders show Cisneros pinwheeling her arms and swinging the knives as she charged at the officers. Pops and an electrical current can be heard just before the officers’ gunshots ring out.