“I CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT HAPPENED TO MY SISTER”: PAMELA CISNEROS’ FAMILY SPEAKS OUT

“I can’t understand what happened to my sister.”

That is the heartbreaking question Pamela Cisneros’ family is now left asking after the 49-year-old Queens woman became the central figure in a shocking Times Square attack.

For Pamela was not always the person the public saw on August 31.

Her family knew a woman who had struggled with serious mental-health problems for years — but who, in more recent years, appeared to be doing better.

They knew a mother of three.

A woman who had earned a master’s degree in psychology.

Someone who had worked in a legal office and was trying to rebuild her life after a difficult marriage and years of personal struggles.

And they knew Pamela as a daughter and sister — not as the woman at the center of a violent afternoon in the heart of Manhattan.

No one in her family appears to have expected what happened next.

A LIFE THAT HAD SEEMED TO STABILIZE

According to relatives, Pamela had battled mental-health problems for decades.

Her brother, Patrick Peralta, said she had received treatment and appeared to have become more stable in recent years. He also said he had never known his sister to be aggressive or violent.

Police had previously encountered Cisneros during two mental-health-related incidents, in 2018 and 2019. She had no prior arrest record with the NYPD, according to Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

Her family had therefore seen difficult chapters before.

But they had also seen Pamela recover enough to continue working, studying and trying to move forward.

That contrast is now one of the most haunting parts of the story.

THEN CAME AUGUST 31

Shortly before 4:30 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 31, police say Cisneros approached a 68-year-old man in Times Square and stabbed him.

Moments later, she allegedly attacked another stranger — 32-year-old Erin Piacenti.

Piacenti, a Bank of America vice president and new mother, had just returned to work after maternity leave.

She had welcomed her first child only months earlier.

Now she was dead.

The attack was described by police as random and unprovoked.

Cisneros then encountered NYPD officers while carrying two knives.

Police say officers repeatedly ordered her to drop the weapons and attempted to stop her with Tasers.

When those efforts failed and Cisneros advanced toward officers, two officers opened fire.

She was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

WHAT CHANGED?

That is the question Pamela’s family cannot escape.

Her brother has described a woman who seemed to have been doing better.

Her father has expressed disbelief over what happened, saying her actions did not make sense to the daughter he knew.

Yet investigators are now examining the final period of her life for clues.

Reports indicate that Pamela had continued to struggle with mental-health issues, while relatives have raised questions about whether her treatment had changed.

But investigators have not publicly established that a change in medication or treatment caused the Times Square attack.

That distinction matters.

Mental illness alone cannot explain or predict violent behavior, and authorities have not announced a definitive motive for what happened.

THE WOMAN BEHIND THE HEADLINES

Before August 31, Pamela Cisneros had a life that was far more complicated than the images now associated with her name.

She was a mother.

A sister.

A daughter.

A woman who had studied psychology and earned a graduate degree.

A woman whose family had spent years watching her struggle, recover and attempt to rebuild.

Then, in a matter of minutes, that entire history collided with one of the most shocking incidents Times Square had seen.

And now her family is left trying to reconcile two completely different images of the same person.

The Pamela they knew — and the Pamela the world saw that afternoon.

What happened in those final days before August 31?

What was going through her mind?

And was there a warning sign her family simply could not see?

Those are questions investigators — and Pamela’s devastated family — may spend a long time trying to answer.