A woman stabbed two people randomly in Times Square on Monday afternoon, one fatally, and was shot dead by the police after she refused to put down two knives, the authorities said. The second victim was in stable condition.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said that the police tried to persuade the woman, Pamela Cisneros, 49, to disarm for four minutes, but that she told officers: “I’m not dropping anything. I would rather kill both of you.”
Aliou Dieye, a vendor, saw the woman with the knives, who was wearing a pink shirt, stab another woman right in front of the stand where he sells sunglasses and ball caps at Seventh Avenue and West 41st Street, in the crowded heart of Times Square, just before 4:30 p.m.
“She didn’t say nothing,” said Mr. Dieye, 62. “She walked up to her. She stabbed her in the stomach.”
Mr. Dieye said that the victim fell to the sidewalk and that he and a friend had called 911 as the woman in the pink shirt headed north. Ms. Tisch said that the woman who was stabbed was 32 years old and was pronounced dead at a hospital. Her name has not been released.
At West 43rd Street, near a Police Department substation, Ms. Cisneros was confronted by the police. There are at least two videos of what happened next. One, posted on X, shows her holding a knife in each hand, in an apparent standoff with police officers standing in a semicircle around her about 10 feet away, as cars and pedestrians continue to go by.
After 38 seconds, someone can be heard yelling “tase her.” Ms. Cisneros begins waving her arms in circles. Someone yells “tase her” again. Several percussive sounds are heard, the wires that are attached to Taser darts can be seen near Ms. Cisneros, and an officer holding what appears to be a Taser gun enters the frame. Ms. Tisch said two officers fired Tasers at Ms. Cisneros.
Ms. Cisneros begins charging toward the officers, two or three shots ring out, and she falls.
Another video, provided by a former law enforcement official and taken from behind the officers, shows at least seven officers surrounding Ms. Cisneros, as billboard ads for a jeweler play surreally on giant video screens in the background, before she runs toward the officers. Shots can be heard in the video, too.
At a news conference in Times Square with the police commissioner, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said, “I want to thank the N.Y.P.D. officers who stepped in and prevented a horrific attack from becoming even worse.” Ms. Tisch said, “Our officers did exactly what they’re trained to do.” Ms. Tisch said that Ms. Cisneros lived in Queens and that there was reason to believe she had a history of mental illness.
Still another video, provided by a food vendor, shows Ms. Cisneros lying on the ground and blood spreading across the sidewalk as officers appear to render aid to her. Paramedics then transport her on a gurney.
The stabbings took place a week before Labor Day, when summer visitors crowd Times Square, one of the city’s biggest draws for tourists.
Murders there are relatively rare. There were two between Jan. 1 and Aug. 30 in the Midtown South Police Precinct, where the incident on Monday occurred, according to the most recently available police data. There were also two murders during the same time period last year. As of Aug. 23, felony assaults in the precinct are down 6 percent from last year, to 356, from 377.
But there have been other high-profile attacks in marquee public spaces in Midtown in recent months. In April, a man with a machete slashed three people at the subway station in Grand Central. And in June, a man stabbed seven people in the span of two minutes inside Penn Station, the nation’s busiest train hub. In those episodes, no one had life-threatening injuries.
Jamie Leventhal contributed reporting.
