NEW YORK — A Bank of America vice president has been identified as the woman killed in a random, unprovoked stabbing attack in the heart of Times Square, the bank and New York City police confirmed this week.

Erin Piacenti, 32, of Chester, New Jersey, died at the hospital after being stabbed in the stomach during the Monday afternoon attack, according to the New York Police Department. A 68-year-old man was also stabbed in the same incident and was later released from the hospital in stable condition.

Police said the attack occurred around 4:24 p.m. near West 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue, one of the busiest pedestrian corridors in Manhattan, as officers responded to 911 calls reporting a disorderly person in the area.

“Upon arrival, officers encountered a 49-year-old female who displayed two large knives and advanced toward them,” police said in a statement. “Officers discharged their firearms, striking the subject. The subject was transported to NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue where she was pronounced deceased.”

Police identified the suspect as Pamela Cisneros, 49, of Queens. According to investigators, Cisneros had been threatening people with two kitchen knives near the intersection before stabbing both the male victim and Piacenti. Officers deployed tasers twice before two officers ultimately fired their weapons, according to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. Cisneros was pronounced dead after being transported to the hospital.

Tisch said Cisneros had a documented history of mental health episodes, including prior interactions with police, though she had no criminal record.

“Our officers were confronted with a rapidly evolving threat, with countless innocent people around them,” Tisch said. “In that moment, they did what we train them to do.”

Reflecting on the loss of life in the attack, Tisch called it “one life cut far too short by a senseless act of violence,” adding that Piacenti left behind “family members and loved ones” now grieving her death.

Bank of America confirmed Piacenti’s death in a statement, describing the loss as devastating to those who worked alongside her.

“We are shocked and deeply saddened by the tragic loss of our colleague,” the bank said. “She was a valued teammate who will be greatly missed. Our hearts go out to her family and all of her loved ones.”

Matthew Koder, president of the bank’s Global Corporate & Investment Banking division, addressed Piacenti’s death directly in an internal memo to staff, describing her as a well-regarded member of the team who had joined the bank roughly a year and a half earlier.

“Erin was a valued member of the Business Selection and Conflicts team, having joined the bank 18 months ago,” Koder wrote, calling her a “cherished teammate and friend.”

According to information from her social media profile cited by police, Piacenti worked as vice president of business selection and conflicts at the bank, a role focused on internal compliance and risk-related review processes tied to the firm’s corporate and investment banking operations.

The attack unfolded in broad daylight in one of the most heavily trafficked and closely monitored public spaces in the country, drawing swift attention from law enforcement and prompting a large police response in the area surrounding Times Square. Witnesses in the area described a chaotic scene as officers moved to confront the armed suspect amid heavy pedestrian and tourist traffic.

The randomness of the attack has drawn particular attention from city officials and residents alike, coming amid broader public debate in New York City over how the city responds to individuals experiencing mental health crises in public spaces. Some New Yorkers who spoke about the incident pointed to mental health as an underlying concern in cases like this one.

“I knew it was mental health issues. That’s a big epidemic out here, bro. We gotta get that under control,” Clyde Benjamin, who works in Times Square, said in the aftermath of the attack.

City police data reviewed following the incident showed that major crime complaints in New York City are down 6.2% so far this year compared with the same period in 2025, with murders down 24.6% over that same span. Only two murders had previously been recorded in the Midtown South Precinct, which includes Times Square, before Monday’s attack, underscoring how rare an incident of this nature is in that specific area of the city, even as it drew immediate comparisons to other high-profile acts of public violence in Manhattan in recent years.

Investigators recovered both knives used in the attack at the scene, and the case remains under investigation by the NYPD as authorities continue piecing together the circumstances that led to Cisneros’ actions that afternoon. Police have not indicated any prior connection between Cisneros and either of the two people she stabbed, reinforcing their characterization of the attack as random and unprovoked.

Piacenti’s death has prompted an outpouring of tributes from colleagues within the banking industry, many of whom described her as a rising professional whose career at the bank had been marked by strong internal regard from teammates and supervisors alike, according to the internal memo circulated by bank leadership.

The stabbing adds to a string of high-profile violent incidents in Manhattan in recent years that have drawn national attention, though officials have been careful to note that such attacks remain statistically rare relative to the city’s overall population and daily foot traffic through areas like Times Square, which sees hundreds of thousands of visitors and commuters pass through on a typical day.

New York City officials have not announced any immediate policy changes in response to the attack, though the incident is likely to renew scrutiny of the city’s approach to individuals with documented mental health histories who come into repeated contact with law enforcement without triggering more intensive intervention or care.

Funeral and memorial arrangements for Piacenti had not been publicly announced as of this week. Bank of America has not indicated whether it plans to take any formal steps, such as establishing a memorial fund, in her honor.

This article was written by

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Operator

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Netskope’s Second Quarter Fiscal 2027 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Michelle Spolver, Chief Communications and Investor Relations Officer. Please go ahead.

Michelle Spolver
Chief Communications & Investor Relations Officer

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. With me on the call are Netskope’s CEO and Co-Founder, Sanjay Beri; and CFO, Andrew Del Matto. The press release announcing our financial results for the second quarter of fiscal 2027 was issued earlier today and is posted to our Investor Relations website at investors.Netskope.com, along with the supplemental presentation.

Before we begin, let me remind everyone that certain statements we make on today’s call are forward-looking, including statements related to our guidance for the third quarter and full 2027 fiscal year, market opportunity, growth prospects, sales ramping, competitive position, impact of AI and demand for AI security.

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Elon Musk has once again told a global audience that he is an alien, reviving years of viral speculation over whether the world’s richest man is joking, deflecting, or simply enjoys watching the internet spiral over one of his stranger public claims.

The remark, delivered onstage at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, quickly circulated online, with many social media users asking whether Musk had genuinely claimed to be an extraterrestrial, or even a time traveler from the future. The answer, according to a direct transcript of the exchange, is more nuanced than either headline suggests, though Musk did say the words himself, unprompted by any interviewer framing.

During a conversation with BlackRock CEO and World Economic Forum interim chair Larry Fink, Musk addressed a question he says he receives often.

“I’m often asked, ‘Are there aliens among us?’ And I’ll say that I am one,” Musk said. “They don’t believe me.”

Fink responded to the remark by referencing an entirely separate claim Musk has made in the past, one involving time travel rather than extraterrestrial origin.

“Or you’re from the future,” Fink said, a comment that alluded to earlier instances in which Musk has described himself online as a “3,000-year-old time-traveling vampire.”

It was not immediately clear from the exchange whether Musk intended the remark as a serious philosophical point, a running joke he has cultivated for years, or some blend of the two. Coverage of the moment noted that observers in the room and online were left uncertain about what specific point, if any, Musk was trying to make by asserting his own alienness.

Despite the offhand claim, Musk used the broader conversation at Davos to lay out a more conventional, if still ambitious, argument: that humanity may in fact be alone in the universe, and that this possibility should shape how seriously governments and businesses treat the survival of human civilization.

“I think we need to assume that life and consciousness is extremely rare and it might only be us,” Musk said, adding that if that assumption holds, “we need to do everything possible to ensure that the light of consciousness is not extinguished.”

Musk argued that if intelligent extraterrestrial life existed nearby, he would likely have already detected some evidence of it through the thousands of satellites operated by his company SpaceX, which now number in the thousands as part of its Starlink internet constellation. He has cited that reasoning previously as part of his broader argument for why humanity should aggressively pursue becoming a multi-planetary species, a goal he has repeatedly tied to SpaceX’s long-term mission of establishing a permanent human presence on Mars.

Musk’s Davos remark was not an isolated incident. He has made similar claims about his own extraterrestrial or otherworldly origins on multiple occasions over the past several years, often through posts on X, the social media platform he owns. In one widely circulated exchange, after sharing a joking post about staying up late, a user asked Musk whether he was a vampire, to which he replied that he was in fact a “3,000 year old vampire” who found it a “trial assuming all these false identities over the centuries.” In the same exchange, Musk went further and also described himself as an alien.

Fact-checking analyses that have reviewed Musk’s various statements on the subject have generally concluded that there is no documented instance of Musk making a literal, factual claim to be extraterrestrial in a context meant to be taken at face value. Instead, researchers who have compiled his public remarks describe a consistent pattern: Musk has repeatedly made jokes, social media quips, and philosophically framed comments about aliens and time travel, often in settings, such as Davos panels or late-night social media posts, where humor and provocation are part of his broader public persona.

That persona has also included other space-related claims that drew more serious pushback. In one prior instance, Musk posted online that ancient Egyptian pyramids were built by aliens, a claim that prompted a direct rebuttal from Egyptian officials and archaeologists. Zahi Hawass, a well-known Egyptologist, publicly dismissed the suggestion, calling it a “complete hallucination” and inviting Musk to visit Egypt to see the archaeological evidence surrounding the pyramids’ construction firsthand.

Musk has also weighed in more soberly on the broader question of alien life during other public appearances, including a past interview in which he said he had personally seen no evidence of conscious extraterrestrial life despite his extensive familiarity with the space industry through SpaceX.

“A lot of people ask me, you know, where are the aliens?” Musk said in that earlier interview. “And I think if anyone would know about aliens on Earth it would probably be me. Yeah, I’m, you know, very familiar with space stuff. And I’ve seen no evidence of aliens.”

The contrast between that more measured statement and his repeated jokes about personally being an alien or time traveler illustrates the pattern fact-checkers have identified: Musk appears comfortable blending serious commentary on space exploration and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence with playful, self-referential jokes about his own identity, often within the same public appearance or even the same sentence.

The Davos moment has nonetheless taken on a life of its own online, spawning a fresh wave of memes and social media commentary treating Musk’s “confession” as a recurring bit rather than breaking news. Commentary tracking the trend has noted that the joke shows no sign of fading, with internet users continuing to pair Musk’s remarks with pop-culture references ranging from science fiction films to satirical merchandise.

For now, there is no indication that Musk intends to offer a more definitive, literal explanation of his repeated claims about being an alien or a time traveler. Coverage of his public appearances suggests the ambiguity itself may be part of the appeal, keeping audiences and media outlets alike guessing each time the subject resurfaces.