video on the news<\/a>, he said.<\/p>\nEven before he had a clear enough look at her to be sure, Peralta said, “the first thing in my head was, \u2018Oh, no. Is that my sister?\u2019 But then I wasn’t sure. I was hoping it wasn’t her,\u201d Peralta told Gothamist Tuesday at the Queens building where Cisneros would often come to visit their mother and stepfather.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then more pictures went out, and then when I saw a frontal picture, I knew it was her,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
NYPD officials say Cisneros was near 41st Street and Seventh Avenue around 4:30 p.m. Monday when a witness saw her pull two knives out of a Target bag. She approached a random 68-year-old man and stabbed him in the abdomen, then stabbed 32-year-old New Jersey resident Erin Piacenti about 20 seconds later, police said. Piacenti died at Bellevue Hospital, and the 68-year-old man was hospitalized in stable condition.<\/p>\n
Police officers then approached Cisneros and spoke to her for four minutes, giving her numerous commands to drop the two knives she was carrying, according to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. Cisneros refused, and she told the officers, \u201cI\u2019m not dropping anything. I would rather kill both of you,\u201d according to Tisch.<\/p>\n
Tisch said multiple officers deployed Tasers, but they were ineffective and Cisneros continued advancing with the knives. Two officers then fired their guns, striking and ultimately killing her, officials said.<\/p>\n
Peralta said the family is struggling to understand what propelled Cisneros \u2014 who had three daughters and a master’s degree in psychology \u2014 to carry out such an attack on two people who police said were strangers to her.<\/p>\n
What Peralta does know, he said, is that his sister had long struggled with what he described as postpartum depression and bipolar disorder. He said those issues began more than 20 years ago after the birth of her second daughter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think she was at home with two kids, so really probably stressed out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
At some point after the birth of her third daughter, Cisneros got divorced from her husband and moved to Florida with her kids, Peralta said. But life was hard for them there, so she came back to New York with her second daughter and enrolled her at a full-time care home in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
Cisneros attempted suicide in 2019, Peralta said. But after that, his sister\u2019s mental health finally seemed to improve with the help of medication, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was doing well, like for the last four years, five years. She was getting injections. She was never aggressive,\u201d Peralta said, adding that she found work on and off with an attorney who specialized in immigration cases and lived in an apartment in Woodside. \u201cShe used to come and have dinner, and my mother and my stepfather cooked for her, mainly almost every afternoon and weekends.\u201d<\/p>\n
But last week, he said, the family became concerned when Cisneros didn’t show up as usual.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was weird because she didn’t come at all last week, and we were trying to call her,\u201d Peralta said. \u201c\u200aMy sister called her, and then my mother talked to her Saturday, and she said she was fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peralta said he\u2019d watched part of the video of his sister\u2019s interaction with police, and is not sure what they could have done differently.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it gets to that point, it’s kinda late \u2026 to talk to a person, you know?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like a switch, and I don’t know what happened in her mind,\u201d Peralta added.<\/p>\n
Piacenti, the woman police said Cisneros fatally stabbed, was a vice president at Bank of America, the company confirmed in a statement Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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,\u201d Bank of America spokesperson John Yiannacopoulos said.<\/p>\n
Peralta said he and his family are also deeply saddened for Piacenti\u2019s family and the man who was stabbed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really don’t know how to express or how to explain why this happened,\u201d he said. \u201cNothing that we can say is going to bring the person back. We feel their pain, too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The woman police shot and killed in Times Square Monday afternoon after she allegedly fatally stabbed one person…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10],"class_list":["post-335445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}