it seems like a random attack Bank of America VP stabbed to death in Times Square

[samhexum]

A Bank of America vice president was killed in a stabbing in New York City's Times Square, the second-biggest U.S. lender said on Tuesday, a random incident that took place in broad daylight in the heart of the city's tourist industry.

The incident brought the streets of the area in Midtown Manhattan to a halt on Monday as emergency vehicles swarmed between the skyscrapers.

The deceased was Erin Piacenti, 32, according to the New York City Police. Bank of America confirmed the loss of a staff member and an internal memo seen by Reuters confirmed her identity. Piacenti was a vice president in BofA's business selection and conflicts unit, according to her LinkedIn profile. 

"We are shocked and deeply saddened by the tragic loss of our colleague. She was a valued teammate who will be greatly missed. Our hearts go out to her family and all of her loved ones," the U.S. banking giant said in an emailed statement to Reuters on Tuesday. BofA's Manhattan office is located a stone's throw from Times Square at One Bryant Park.

An unnamed 68-year-old man also suffered stab wounds in the attack and was in stable condition, the NYPD said in a statement. 

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the attack, which took place on Monday around 4:24 p.m. ET in the vicinity of West 42 Street and Seventh Avenue, appeared to be random and unprovoked.

The NYPD said when officers arrived on the scene they found Pamela Cisneros, a 49-year-old woman, who was brandishing two large knives and advanced toward officers. Officers shot Cisneros, and she was later pronounced dead. Tisch said Cisneros had a documented mental health history.

SECURITY TEAMS ENGAGED

Bank of America's president of Global Corporate & Investment Banking Matthew Koder described Piacenti as a "cherished teammate and friend" in an internal memo seen by Reuters.

"Erin was a valued member of the Business Selection and Conflicts team, having joined the bank 18 months ago," Koder wrote in the memo. "Her loss is being felt deeply by many."

Koder said that Bank of America's security teams were "fully engaged in supporting the police investigation here, and in addressing the ongoing safety and security of our offices and teammates."

Last year, a senior Blackstone executive was killed when a gunman carrying an assault rifle walked into the lobby of a Midtown Manhattan office building and opened fire.

In 2022, a Goldman Sachs employee was fatally shot in a random, unprovoked attack while riding a train from Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan.

And in 2024, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead outside a Manhattan hotel in what law-enforcement officials have called a premeditated assassination. Last month, Luigi Mangione admitted in court that he fatally shot the health insurance executive.

Despite these high-profile incidents, recent data shows crime in New York City has been falling. Last month, the NYPD said the city recorded the fewest shooting incidents, shooting victims and murders on record both for the first seven months of the year and for the month of July. 

[+ sniper]

I saw the video of the woman holding the knives and honestly, I think I could have taken her down unarmed. Seemed like they could have tased her instead of shooting her.

[+ sniper]

Huh so apparently they DOD tase her 3 times but one hit her purse so didn't complete the circuit, and others hit her in fatty parts of her body where the taser apparently doesn't habe as much effect.  Still I think i just would have picked up a garbage can and bashed her with it...

[Lotus-eater]

5 hours ago, sniper said:

Huh so apparently they DOD tase her 3 times but one hit her purse so didn't complete the circuit, and others hit her in fatty parts of her body where the taser apparently doesn't habe as much effect.  Still I think i just would have picked up a garbage can and bashed her with it...

I see no good reason why a murderess should be treated with kid gloves and I would expect someone with a name like yours to favor taking her out with one clean shot. 

[samhexum]

1 hour ago, Lotus-eater said:

I would expect someone with a name like yours to favor taking her out with one clean shot. 

Snipe means to shoot at someone from a hidden place or to attack someone with sharp, hidden criticism

ain't that what he's doing?

[marylander1940]

When I read stabbing first, I thought about all the stabbings going on in Europe. 

5 hours ago, Lotus-eater said:

I see no good reason why a murderess should be treated with kid gloves and I would expect someone with a name like yours to favor taking her out with one clean shot. 

Agreed!

In some cases, cops must always shoot. 

11 hours ago, sniper said:

I saw the video of the woman holding the knives and honestly, I think I could have taken her down unarmed. Seemed like they could have tased her instead of shooting her.

Just think of her locked up for life having free healthcare paid by taxpayers. You can easily see she has huge preexisting condition called obesity.

[Peter Eater]

12 hours ago, samhexum said:

Despite these high-profile incidents, recent data shows crime in New York City has been falling.

I don’t know the news source being cut-and-pasted, but wtf? Why even identify and list these supposedly “high-profile incidents,” and then say they are irrelevant? Cheap scandal-mongering.

[Peter Eater]

5 hours ago, Lotus-eater said:

see no good reason why a murderess should be treated with kid gloves and I would expect someone with a name like yours to favor taking her out with one clean shot. 

An eye for an eye? Ugh. The Old Testament has been out of date for a couple thousand years. We figured out that vengeance and justice are two different things.

[+ sniper]

Maybe a quick death is too good for her. But in general, I think the goal should be to take perps in alive. I have a relative who became manic and was attempting to be violent but her disability left her too weak to actually hurt anyone. Had she been able bodied she'd likely have both seriously harmed someone and gotten herself killed by the cops. Spent three weeks in a psych hospital and thankfully they found the right combo of meds. Over a decade later she has beeen lucid but has zero recollection of the incident or the hospital stay, or the couple of months she was spiralling leading up to it.

Edited Wednesday at 07:46 PM by sniper

[+ sync]

My armchair curiosity is why it is that in such situations as the one described above, police officers could not take aim to disable rather than kill (target the perpetrator's legs for instance)?

[+ JamesB]

51 minutes ago, sync said:

My armchair curiosity is why it is that in such situations as the one described above, police officers could not take aim to disable rather than kill (target the perpetrator's legs for instance)?

Some of the reasons why you should aim at center of mass instead of a leg: High probability of missing, severe collateral risk to bystanders, failure to guarantee Immediate Incapacitation and lethality still remains high.

[+ sync]

13 minutes ago, JamesB said:

Some of the reasons why you should aim at center of mass instead of a leg: High probability of missing, severe collateral risk to bystanders, failure to guarantee Immediate Incapacitation and lethality still remains high.

I can respect that view for random responders, but not for trained law enforcement officers.

[+ sniper]

They were in a very crowded area and firing in  a live situation is very different from target practice at the range. Typically when shooting outdoors at a person something like half the shots miss is what I was told many years ago.

[Lotus-eater]

1 hour ago, sync said:

I can respect that view for random responders, but not for trained law enforcement officers.

How do you propose to train police officers, who are in fact trained to aim for the torso for those reasons once the legal threshold for the use of deadly force is met? This isn't a Hollywood movie where it's portrayed as easy to shoot someone in the leg or arm (which doesn't guarantee that they will be incapacitated or not bleed out), which is probably why no police department trains officers to shoot to incapacitate rather than to kill.

Edited Wednesday at 06:19 PM by Lotus-eater

[+ JamesB]

1 hour ago, sync said:

I can respect that view for random responders, but not for trained law enforcement officers.

Actually, law enforcement officers are explicitly trained to target center mass.

[Lotus-eater]

4 hours ago, Peter Eater said:

An eye for an eye? Ugh. The Old Testament has been out of date for a couple thousand years. We figured out that vengeance and justice are two different things.

Your last man conception of just punishment is not directly relevant to deciding the best method for neutralizing a deadly violent suspect still on the loose.

[Nue2thegame]

It was a tragedy for all concerned. 

[+ sync]

1 hour ago, JamesB said:

Actually, law enforcement officers are explicitly trained to target center mass.

 

1 hour ago, Lotus-eater said:

How do you propose to train police officers, who are in fact trained to aim for the torso for those reasons once the legal threshold for the use of deadly force is met? This isn't a Hollywood movie where it's portrayed as easy to shoot someone in the leg or arm (which doesn't guarantee that they will be incapacitated or not bleed out), which is probably why no police department trains officers to shoot to incapacitate rather than to kill.

Go I.C.E.  😪

[Peter Eater]

18 hours ago, Lotus-eater said:

neutralizing a deadly violent suspect still on the loose

You mean a fat lady with a knife? Oh. 

[+ BOZO T CLOWN]

On 9/2/2026 at 4:03 AM, Lotus-eater said:

I see no good reason why a murderess should be treated with kid gloves and I would expect someone with a name like yours to favor taking her out with one clean shot. 

Absolutely!
The cops couldn't shoot this crazed psychopath in her heart, because she didn't have one. 
After murdering one innocent victim, stabbing another, and lunging at the police officers with 2 kitchen knives, the cops should have given her a bullet between her eyes. That would have been justice.
There is no reason that taxpayers should have to pay millions to feed and house this fat, violent slob for the next 40 or 50 years.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-memory-of-erin-piacenti-supporting-madisons-future

BTC
🤡

[BSR]

21 hours ago, Lotus-eater said:

How do you propose to train police officers, who are in fact trained to aim for the torso for those reasons once the legal threshold for the use of deadly force is met? This isn't a Hollywood movie where it's portrayed as easy to shoot someone in the leg or arm (which doesn't guarantee that they will be incapacitated or not bleed out), which is probably why no police department trains officers to shoot to incapacitate rather than to kill.

If you have any experience firing pistols at a shooting range, you know how difficult it is to shoot someone in the leg or arm.  In a high-stress situation with a moving target, difficult becomes impossible.  Then consider the deadly consequences to innocent bystanders when the officers almost inevitably miss the leg or arm they are aiming for.

In a perfect world, police would always be armed with shotguns that fire flexible baton rounds (kinda like a beanbag instead of lead shot), which stuns and even injures a suspect without killing them.  But shotguns are long, heavy, and unwieldy, plus they’re so damn loud the blast almost gives me a heart attack.  Officers carry their service pistol on their person whereas they would have to pop the trunk to get out a shotgun.  Those few seconds of difference might cost another person their life.

[+ sync]

Random attacks are a curse of our present-day society.  While walking through NYC's Grand Central Station a man I had never met walked up to me and punched me in my chest.  As outraged as I was, I was also thankful that it was not a knife or a gunshot.

[Lotus-eater]

4 hours ago, Peter Eater said:

You mean a fat lady with a knife? Oh. 

Fat shaming doesn't change the fact that she proved quite capable of murdering and injuring other people.

Edited 21 hours ago by Lotus-eater

[+ BOZO T CLOWN]

17 hours ago, Lotus-eater said:

Fat shaming doesn't change the fact that she proved quite capable of murdering and injuring other people.

Exactly!
There is only one victim in this case. And, despite what some may think, it isn't that xxx POS.

*Edit by moderator

BTC
🤡

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

As much as I dislike Bank of America's treatment of its customers, no one at Bank of America deserves this.