A woman armed with two large knives killed one person and injured another in New York’s Times Square before police shot and killed her after she refused repeated orders to drop the weapons.
The attack unfolded in broad daylight on 2026-08-31 in one of the city’s busiest tourist districts. According to the supplied report, the suspect, identified by police as 49-year-old Queens resident Pamela Cisneros, first threatened passersby after pulling the knives from a bag and then attacked two people within seconds of each other. A 68-year-old man was stabbed in the abdomen, followed about 20 seconds later by a 32-year-old woman who was also stabbed in the abdomen and later died.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani later announced the deaths, saying the second victim was in stable condition at a hospital before the death was confirmed. The identities of the victims were not immediately released pending notification of families.
Police said officers tried for about four minutes to get Cisneros to surrender. New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said she repeatedly ignored commands to drop the knives and told officers, “I’m not dropping anything. I would rather kill both of you.” Officers then used a stun gun without success before firing their handguns. Local reporting cited a witness who said the suspect was tased and then shot when she moved toward officers.
The report says police do not believe the attack was terror-related. That distinction matters because Times Square is a high-profile public space where officers are trained to assume the possibility of a wider threat. In this case, the early assessment points instead to a fast-moving street attack involving a suspect who police said had known mental-health issues.
The location added to the shock. Times Square is one of New York’s most crowded commercial and entertainment corridors, with constant pedestrian traffic from tourists, commuters, workers and families. Tisch called it an extraordinarily dangerous situation in the heart of what she described as the crossroads of the world.
The supplied material does not give a motive, and it does not explain why Cisneros was carrying two knives or how she came to the area. It does make clear that police were forced to make a rapid use-of-force decision after a short but lethal assault that left one victim dead and another hospitalized.
The incident now joins a familiar but still jarring category of public-space violence in New York: attacks that begin with little warning, take place in front of crowds, and end only after armed officers intervene. The facts confirmed in the packet show a brief encounter with deadly consequences, followed by an immediate police response and a homicide investigation at one of the city’s most heavily watched locations.
