A 32-year-old woman was killed after a woman armed with two knives attacked people in Times Square, and the suspect was shot dead by police, city officials said.
The incident unfolded at about 16:24 local time, New York City Police Department officials said, beginning near West 41st Street and Seventh Avenue. Police said the attacker approached a man who had just left the subway and was standing with his wife, then removed two knives from a red Target bag and stabbed him. That victim, 68, was taken to Bellevue Hospital and is in stable condition.
The attacker continued up Seventh Avenue toward 42nd Street and stabbed a second victim, a 32-year-old woman, who later died after being taken to hospital. Officials described the assaults as rapid, occurring within approximately 20 seconds of each other.
NYPD officers confronted the suspect and spoke with her for four minutes as they tried to get her to drop the weapons, Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. "During the encounter she told the officers 'I'm not dropping anything, I'd rather kill both of you'. She repeated 'I will kill you'," Tisch said. Officers deployed Tasers, which were ineffective, and then fired at the suspect. All three people were taken to hospital; the female victim and the suspect were later pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital.
The suspect was identified as 49-year-old Pamela Cisneros of Queens. Tisch said she had never been arrested but had "a documented mental health history with the NYPD, with one incident in 2018 and one in 2019." Mayor Zohran Mamdani thanked NYPD officers, saying they had "prevented a horrific attack from becoming even worse."
A tourist from Boston, Melinda Puzon, said she heard the shots and saw "so many people on the street." "It's very shocking," she said.
City officials gave these details at a news conference as they described the rapid sequence of events that left one person dead, another wounded and the suspect also dead after police fired their weapons.
