According to sources cited by The New York Post, Piacenti worked in Manhattan as Bank of America’s vice president of business selection and conflicts.
Social media posts indicated that the young banking executive had recently marked her second wedding anniversary.
Her death came during a chaotic burst of violence in one of the most heavily traveled tourist destinations in America.
Police identified the alleged attacker as 49-year-old Pamela Cisneros Lopez.
Authorities said the violence began when Lopez allegedly removed two knives from a shopping bag and attacked a 68-year-old man who was waiting with his wife to cross the street.
The man was stabbed in the stomach and rushed to a hospital, where officials said he was in stable condition.
Piacenti was then allegedly attacked and fatally wounded.
The bloodshed sent pedestrians fleeing as responding NYPD officers moved in to confront Lopez, who police said remained armed with two knives.
Video recorded at the scene captured officers attempting to use a Taser to subdue her.
It did not stop the confrontation.
Authorities said Lopez continued brandishing the knives and eventually charged toward police, prompting officers to open fire.
Two shots could reportedly be heard before Lopez collapsed on the pavement.
Officers quickly handcuffed her and began providing emergency medical treatment.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said officers had attempted to get Lopez to surrender her weapons before the fatal encounter.
According to Tisch, Lopez responded with a chilling threat:
‘I’m not dropping anything, I would rather kill both of you.’
Tisch emphasized just how dangerous the confrontation was given the enormous number of people routinely packed into Times Square.
‘This was an extraordinarily dangerous situation unfolding in the heart of Times Square, the crossroads of the world.
‘At any given moment, there are thousands of New Yorkers, commuters, tourists, families, workers moving through these streets.’
Investigators are now trying to determine what triggered the apparently indiscriminate violence.
Police initially responded to reports describing a robbery involving a knife. But investigators later said they had not established a clear motive behind the attacks.
Authorities also said they had found no evidence suggesting that terrorism played a role.
Tisch revealed that Lopez had a ‘documented mental health history’ involving previous NYPD encounters in 2018 and 2019.
Despite those prior interactions, Lopez had never been arrested, according to police.
Both Tisch and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani praised the officers who confronted Lopez, arguing that their intervention potentially stopped the attacker from reaching additional victims in the crowded commercial district.
Witnesses described an alarming scene unfolding within minutes.
One person who captured part of the confrontation using smart glasses said police surrounded Lopez and attempted to communicate with her before gunfire erupted.
‘She ran down, the cops went by, they surrounded her, talked to her for like five minutes.’
Other witnesses encountered the victims before emergency crews could fully secure the area.
Linda Ruiz told the Daily News that she came across a badly bleeding man desperately calling for assistance.
‘I saw a guy bleeding profusely from his right leg,’ she told the Daily News. ‘He was gushing blood, saying “I need help. Help me.”‘
Ruiz said she went looking for an officer and then discovered another wounded victim nearby.
‘I went to get a cop on the corner and there was another lady on the floor,’ Ruiz continued. ‘She was stabbed in the back or in the chest, I couldn’t tell.
‘There was a lot of blood,’ Ruiz noted. ‘She wasn’t conscious. The police were trying to resuscitate her, but she wasn’t moving. It was horrible.’
Hassan Abdallah, who works at a nearby fruit cart, similarly recalled hearing screams before seeing people suddenly running through the area.
‘I heard a lady screaming and then people were running like crazy,’ he recounted. ‘I went outside [the cart]. I saw an old guy, like 60, Asian. He was standing, holding his back. He got stabbed.
‘His wife was trying to stop the bleeding. She was using a book or some paper, then someone gave her a scarf. I gave him a paper towel. His wife told him to lay on the floor.’
The horrifying episode is likely to intensify the ongoing debate over public safety in New York City, particularly when seemingly random violence occurs in locations visited daily by enormous numbers of commuters, workers, families and tourists.
The fact that the fatal attack unfolded in broad daylight in Times Square will only add to questions about how city officials can keep heavily populated public spaces safe from unpredictable violence.
Piacenti, meanwhile, went to Manhattan as a young professional and never made it home.
What began as an ordinary Monday ended with a 32-year-old banking executive dead, another man hospitalized and the alleged attacker killed following a confrontation with police.
Investigators recovered two knives at the scene.
The NYPD continues to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deadly rampage and what, if anything, motivated Lopez to allegedly target two strangers in the middle of Times Square.
