By Kerry Burke and Colin Mixson

Source New York Daily News

A knife-wielding mentally ill woman who killed a stranger and left another wounded in a bloody stabbing spree near Times Square was shot and killed by NYPD cops Monday after refusing to drop the knives she was swinging, NYPD officials and witnesses said.

The unprovoked rampage began at W. 41st St. near Seventh Ave. in Midtown around 4:24 p.m., when the stabber attacked a 68-year-old man who had just come out of a nearby subway station and was waiting to cross the street with his wife, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a press briefing in Times Square.

A witness told police that he watched as the suspect, identified by police as Pamela Cisneros, a 49-year-old Queens woman with a history of mental health issues, took two knives from a red Target bag and stabbed the victim in his abdomen, Tisch said.

Within 20 seconds, the violence continued as Cisneros headed north to W. 42nd St. and stabbed a 32-year-old woman in the abdomen, according to the commissioner.

Police confronted Cisneros near an NYPD substation by W. 43rd St., where the suspect ignored repeated orders to drop the knives as she threatened officers during a roughly four-minute standoff that was caught on bodycam, said Tisch.

“I’m not dropping anything. I would rather kill both of you. I will kill you,” the woman told police, according to the police commissioner.

Police made several attempts to stop Cisneros with a taser as she approached cops holding both knives. When that failed, two officers opened fire.

“This was an extraordinarily dangerous situation unfolding in the heart of Times Square, the crossroads of the world,” said Tisch. “Our officers were confronted with a rapidly evolving threat with countless innocent people around them. In that moment, they did what we trained them to do.”

Both the stabbing victims and the suspect were taken to Bellevue Hospital, where the wounded woman and the suspect died, according to sources. The man is expected to survive, sources said.

“I ask New Yorkers to join me in holding the victim in our thoughts and wishing them a full recovery,” Mayor Mamdani said at the Times Square press briefing.

“I want to thank the NYPD officers who stepped in and prevented a horrific attack from becoming even worse. This is what the men and women of this department do every day to keep this city safe.”

Tisch said Cisneros has a history of mental health issues, including incidents in 2018 and 2019. Cisneros has no criminal record in New York City, according to Tisch, who declined to provide details regarding the suspect’s mental health.

Police recovered two knives from the scene, Tisch said.

NYC has struggled with the care and treatment of the mentally ill for years. The shutdown of large-scale psychiatric institutions left a void in the system as the community-based care network that was supposed to fill the gap is widely seen as inadequate and underfunded.

Just last week, 65-year-old Lydia Zuniga’s leg was broken in three places after a mentally ill stranger shoved her onto the tracks at a Bronx subway station in an unprovoked attack.  “The situation has got to stop,” an outraged Lydia Zuniga told the Daily News from her hospital bed, saying city leaders are not doing enough to keep New Yorkers safe.

Monday’s bloody rampage unfolding on a summer afternoon in the heart of the city left witnesses in shock.

Construction worker Jorge Disla was heading home when he came upon the scene and used his phone to record video of the woman swinging a knife in each hand.

“The police tried to speak with her,” said Disla, 57. “They were shouting, ‘Drop the knives!’

The video shows a woman in a pink shirt in a standoff with cops, who surround her outside a police station. She began to swing the knives as she approached the officers. Shots can be then heard, and the woman collapses.

Another witness described the aftermath of the two stabbings before police arrived on the scene.

“I was crossing at 42nd St. I saw a guy bleeding profusely from his right leg. He was gushing blood, saying, ‘I need help. Help me,'” said Linda Ruiz, 58.

“I went to get a cop on the corner and there was another lady on the floor. She was stabbed in the back or in the chest,” said Ruiz. “I couldn’t tell. There was a lot of blood. She wasn’t conscious. The police were trying to resuscitate her. But she wasn’t moving. It was horrible.”

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