“DON’T WORRY, DAD. I’M FINE.” — PAMELA CISNEROS’ FATHER THOUGHT SHE HAD TURNED A CORNER

“Don’t worry, Dad. I’m fine.”

That was the reassurance Pamela Cisneros gave her father when he offered to drive her to a mental-health appointment earlier this year.

Her father, Mario Cisneros, believed her.

After years of supporting his daughter through periods of serious mental-health struggles, he thought Pamela had finally reached a more stable chapter of her life.

Then everything changed.

On August 31, 2026, Pamela Cisneros, 49, became the focus of a shocking incident in New York City’s Times Square.

And suddenly, the daughter her father believed he understood became almost impossible for him to recognize.

THE WARNING HER FAMILY DIDN’T SEE

According to her father, Pamela had received monthly medication injections and had been attending regular treatment appointments.

He had helped take her to those appointments and believed the treatment was helping her remain stable.

But in April, when he offered to drive her to another appointment at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, Pamela told him she could go by herself.

She reassured him that she was fine.

Her father accepted that answer.

He later told reporters that he had seen Pamela around 10 days before the Times Square incident and noticed nothing that made him believe she was heading toward another crisis.

For a family that had spent years watching her struggle, those ordinary moments seemed to suggest that the worst was behind them.

They were wrong.

A LIFE THAT HAD BECOME INCREASINGLY COMPLICATED

Pamela had faced serious personal difficulties over the years.

She had been married and had three children, while records and family accounts described periods of financial and personal instability.

Her father said her mental-health struggles had become particularly serious after the birth of one of her children.

Police records also document previous encounters involving her mental health, including a 2019 incident in which officers found her after she apparently attempted to jump onto subway tracks.

Yet family members said they had never known her to be violent toward other people.

That made what happened in Times Square even harder to understand.

THEN CAME TIMES SQUARE

On the afternoon of August 31, police said Cisneros approached two strangers near Seventh Avenue in Times Square.

A 68-year-old man was injured first.

Seconds later, 32-year-old Erin Piacenti was attacked.

Piacenti, a Bank of America vice president and lawyer, was returning from work when she was fatally injured. She had recently celebrated her second wedding anniversary and had bought a home with her husband.

Police described the attacks as random and unprovoked.

Cisneros was then confronted by officers while holding two knives.

According to the NYPD, officers repeatedly ordered her to drop them. Several Tasers were deployed without apparent effect. When she continued moving toward officers, two officers fired their service weapons.

Cisneros was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

“I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT WAS GOING ON WITH HER”

For Mario Cisneros, the most painful question may be the simplest one.

What happened?

He told ABC7 that he knew his daughter well — but did not know what was happening inside her during the period leading up to the Times Square incident.

He said she had been receiving injections and appeared stable when he last saw her.

Her family now has to reconcile those memories with the events that unfolded in one of New York City’s busiest public spaces.

THE QUESTIONS LEFT BEHIND

Authorities have documented Pamela Cisneros’ history of mental-health-related encounters, but that history alone does not explain what happened on August 31.

It is also not clear from the available public information exactly what treatment she was receiving, whether she had continued taking her medication, or what may have changed in the weeks before the incident.

New York’s Attorney General has opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Cisneros’ encounter with police. The investigation is ongoing, and officials have emphasized that the facts remain subject to change.

For her family, however, the unanswered questions are deeply personal.

Her father thought he had seen his daughter return to herself.

He believed her when she said she was fine.

And now, one ordinary conversation about a medical appointment has taken on a meaning he could never have imagined.

Sometimes, the people closest to us can see that someone is struggling — but they cannot always see how much is being carried beneath the surface.

For Pamela Cisneros’ family, that is the question that remains: when did the daughter they thought was getting better begin slipping away again — and could anyone have known in time?