NYPD bodycam footage released Friday shows officers pleading with a knife-wielding woman before fatally shooting her in Times Square last month.
The video captures the final minutes of Pamela Cisneros, 49, a Queens mother of three with a documented mental health history, at 42nd Street and 7th Avenue shortly after 8 p.m. On Aug. 31. Officers Ryan Brito and Francis Gagliano were the first to confront her after she had already stabbed two people in an unhinged rampage.
“Put the knife down,” Brito told Cisneros as she held two kitchen knives in front of her chest.
“Come and get me,” Cisneros said, to which Gagliano replied, “I don’t want to get you.”
“I’m tired of this world already,” Cisneros said. “Tired of this sh–.”
The officers continued trying to de-escalate as Cisneros grew more agitated. Brito attempted to appeal to her emotions, telling her, “I get it. The world is hard. Especially New York City. I know New York City is hard. Trust me, we all suffer.”
“You believe in God?” he asked, to which Cisneros replied: “No. Not anymore.”
“You’re going to have to kill me. Yes, you are,” she told the cops. “Either that, or I’m going to kill all of you.”
“Listen, I know you’re going through a lot, but it’s not worth it,” Brito pleaded with her. “It’s not worth it. I promise you.”
More officers rushed to the scene and repeatedly asked Cisneros to drop the knives. “I’m not dropping anything,” she vowed.
The confrontation had begun minutes earlier when Cisneros pulled two knives from a red Target bag and attacked Tak Kam, 68, stabbing him in the abdomen as he exited the subway on West 41st Street and waited to cross the street. She then continued to 42nd Street and plunged a knife into Bank of America exec Erin Piacenti, 32, who had just returned from maternity leave. Piacenti died from her injuries.
Cisneros began waving the two knives in a circle to her side, prompting officers to deploy multiple tasers. Seemingly unfazed by the electric shocks, she charged toward police while screaming. Officers Joseph O’Connor and Steven Darcy then fired three rounds at Cisneros, causing her to collapse forward onto the sidewalk. She was rushed to a local hospital and pronounced dead.
Cisneros had a documented mental health history with police, including a previous suicide attempt. The release of the bodycam footage came Friday evening, providing the most complete account yet of how a chaotic episode in one of Manhattan’s most heavily trafficked intersections ended in a fatal police shooting.
The NYPD has not announced any disciplinary action against the officers involved. The department’s Force Investigation Division is reviewing the shooting, standard protocol for all police-involved fatalities.