For almost four minutes, NYPD agents tried to convince Pamela Cisneros to leave the two knives on the floor. They talked to her, asked her to breathe, tried to figure out what was going on. She responded several times that she was “the tire of this world” and invited the cops to approach. Then he said they should kill her, otherwise he would kill them.
It is the part of the intervention that is seen more clearly in the movies of the bodycam spread on Friday, September 25 from NYPD, almost a month after the shooting of August 31 in Times Square. The images add several minutes to those taken by passersby and circulated on social media immediately after the incident: they show above all the initial attempt of agents to solve the situation without firing.
Cisneros was 49 years old and lived in Queens. A few minutes before the police had stabbed two people along Seventh Avenue. The first was Tak Kam, 68, who survived aggression. Shortly thereafter Cisneros struck the addome Erin Piacenti, a 32-year-old Bank of America manager living in Chester, New Jersey. Piacenti was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he died. She had just returned to work after maternity leave and had a five-month daughter.
Bodycams begin around 16:25, when agents Ryan Brito and Francis Gagliano reach Cisneros near Times Square police station. She holds a knife in each hand. The two don’t get the guns out. Brito tries to talk to her, asks her what’s going on with her, tells her to breathe and lower her weapons. At some point she says she doesn’t want to hurt her. Cisneros responds: «Come and get me».
Dialogue continues as pedestrians, bicycles and cars pass around. Cisneros says he’s gone too far and that’s for her “the only way to get out of it”. Brito tells her that New York is a difficult city and tries to convince her that there are other possibilities. The words of Cisneros clearly indicate a will to die during the confrontation.
The situation changes with the arrival of other agents. Cisneros says they have to kill her or she’ll kill them. Around 16:29 policemen present are now different and some hold the Taser. She is repeatedly ordered to leave the knives. After almost twenty demands, Cisneros begins to move his arms while still holding blades and agents try to stop it with electrical weapons.
Taser does not produce the desired effect. According to the Reconstruction of the New York State Attorney General, three agents use them without being able to block it. Cisneros then moves towards police officers with knives still in hand. Agents Joseph O’Connor and Steven Darcy shoot three rounds altogether. Cisneros falls on the sidewalk and is transported to Bellevue Hospital, where he dies.
Movies are relevant especially because they show more precisely what happened before shooting. In the hours following the incident, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch had defended the work of the agents, saying that they had done what they had been trained for. Some police experts who had seen the first videos shot by passers-by had considered compatible with the rules of the department the decision to shoot when Cisneros approached with knives, while others had raised doubts about the tactical management of the previous minutes, including the presence of passers-by and vehicles behind her.
The rules of NYPD establish that the lethal force can be used to protect agents or other people from an imminent danger of death or serious injury. The same rules ask, however, when the conditions allow it, to resort first to de-escalation techniques and to less lethal tools. However, there is no obligation to cross all different levels of force in order before using a firearm.
The case also reopened the discussion about how the city intervenes when an armed person is in a serious psychic crisis. Cisneros’ brother told that the woman had mental health problems for many years, while the police confirmed at least two previous interventions related to her condition, in 2018 and 2019. According to the family, in recent times it seemed to be better and had not previously shown violent behaviors of this type.
However, the publication of bodycams does not close the question about the use of force. The death of Cisneros will be examined by the NYPD Force Investigation Division and the Office of Special Investigation of the State Attorney General, Letitia James. The latter opens by law an investigation when a police officer may have caused the death of a person: in his communication of 2 September he specified that the reconstruction of the facts is still preliminary.
L’articolo Le bodycam show the four minutes before the police killed Pamela Cisneros in Times Square proviene da IlNewyorkese.
