Erin Piacenti, 32, died following an unprovoked attack in Midtown Manhattan on Monday, police said.
NEW YORK—Erin Piacenti, a 32-year-old Bank of America vice president, was killed Monday in a Times Square stabbing that left another person injured.
“We are shocked and deeply saddened by the tragic loss of our colleague. She was a valued teammate who will be greatly missed. Our hearts go out to her family and all of her loved ones,” the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank said in a statement to Global Finance on Tuesday.
The alleged perpetrator reportedly charged at NYPD officers and was fatally shot moments later. A second victim remains hospitalized but in stable condition.
Erin Piacenti, Bank of America
Piacenti began her career as a legal intern with Major League Baseball before taking M&A roles at Morgan Stanley and law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, respectively. She joined Bank of America’s business selection and conflicts unit in 2025, per her LinkedIn profile.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani addressed the incident during a press briefing Monday: “I want to thank the NYPD officers who stepped in and prevented a horrific attack from becoming even worse. This is what the men and women of this department do every single day to keep our city safe.”
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch stated that the unprovoked attack began near West 41st Street and 7th Avenue when a woman pulled two knives from a Target bag. Responding NYPD officers first deployed a Taser and fired their weapons at the alleged perpetrator, fatally wounding the alleged attacker.
Both victims and the suspect were transported to Bellevue Hospital.
Piacenti is reportedly from Chester, New Jersey.
Mamdani, NYPD News Conference
Though violent crime is at historically low levels in New York City, another fatal stabbing occurred around the same area back in May.
Monday’s attack is the latest high-profile attack involving financial executives and corporate leaders in Midtown Manhattan over the past two years.
In July 2025, Blackstone Inc. executive Wesley LePatner was among four people killed in a shooting at the firm’s office on Park Avenue.
Before that, in December 2024, UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed outside the New York Hilton Midtown.
Anthony Noto covers corporate finance and private credit. Contact him at anoto@gfmag.com
A woman has been shot dead by police in New York’s iconic Times Square. Police say the woman, who was armed with two large knives, had stabbed two people, one fatally. A warning this video could distress some viewers.
Security was tight outside the West Kowloon Law Courts Building on Friday morning as guilty verdicts were handed down inside against Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan on charges of inciting subversion over their roles in organizing candlelit vigils commemorating the deadly 1989 Tiananmen crackdown in Beijing. Photo by May James/EPA
Aug. 21 (UPI) — Two Hong Kong activists who organized vigils to commemorate those killed in a crackdown by the Chinese military on the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests were facing up to 10 years in prison after being convicted Friday of inciting subversion.
Chow Hang-tung, 41, and Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, who had been in custody since 2021, “incited other persons to organize, plan, commit or participate in acts by unlawful means with a view to subverting state power.”
The two leaders of the now-dissolved Hong Kong Alliance organized the vigils, which had been held annually on June 4 since 1990, after they were banned in 2020 after a tough new National Security Law was imposed from Beijing, following huge street protests that rocked the territory the previous year.
Former Democratic Party lawmaker Albert Ho, 74, who was charged alongside Chow and Lee, pleaded guilty at the start of the trial in January.
Amnesty International expressed dismay at the verdicts saying it demonstrated how the national security law was being used to go after people for peacefully marking the anniversary of one of the most sinister events in the history of China, in the only place in the country where it was permitted.
It said the decision marked another “grim milestone in the government’s deliberate campaign to erase that legacy and silence those who seek truth, justice and accountability.”
Deputy Regional Director Sarah Brooks said Chow and Lee’s “crime” was not one that would be recognized anywhere else.
“The Hong Kong authorities should quash these convictions and end the ongoing persecution of people seeking to keep the memory of Tiananmen alive. Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan are prisoners of conscience who should never have been prosecuted in the first place. They must be released immediately and unconditionally.”
The Foreign Office in London issued a statement criticizing the case saying it was not in line with the “one-country-two systems” treaty Britain signed with Beijing for the return of its former colony which guarantees the rights and way of life of Hong Kong people for 50 years after the handover in 1997.
“This verdict is a further demonstration that even peaceful acts of remembrance in Hong Kong are now treated by the authorities as threats to national security. The extensive use of Beijing’s national security law to punish and restrict peaceful expression undermines the commitments China made to Hong Kong under the 1984 Sino-British joint declaration,” said Indo-Pacific minister Rosie Winterton.
“We reiterate our call for the national security law to be repealed, and for rights and freedoms to be respected in the Hong Kong special administrative region,” she added.
Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his famed “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on August 28, 1963. The speech galvanized the nation’s civil rights movements and led to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Fair Housing Act. File photo by UPI | License Photo
Lee and Chow were also leaders of the now-defunct Hong Kong Alliance (HKA).
The HKA was founded in May 1989 to support students holding pro-democracy rallies. Weeks later, the Communist Party crushed pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square with troops and tanks. Estimates of the death toll range from a few hundred to many thousands.
Over the next three decades, HKA called on authorities to accept responsibility for the crackdown, free dissidents and introduce democratic reform.
The Alliance’s leaders were charged in 2021 and have been behind bars since.
Rights group Amnesty International has said the case “relies on vague, overly broad and arbitrary definitions of ‘subversion'”.
Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director, said Chow and Lee had “not committed any recognisable crime”.
“Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan are prisoners of conscience who should never have been prosecuted in the first place. They must be released immediately and unconditionally”, she added.
In a separate case, Chow was arrested in June 2021 for “inciting” the public to take part in that year’s vigil and later found guilty.
However, Hong Kong’s top court overturned that conviction in 2022, with a judge ruling the police hadn’t properly justified the vigil’s ban.
Chow Hang-tung spoke to the BBC in 2021, weeks before her arrest on 4 June 2022.
“I am prepared to be arrested. That is how Hong Kong is now,” she had said.
“I am willing to pay the price for fighting for democracy”.
The next Los Angeles City Councilmember to represent the West San Fernando Valley will either be a former small business owner backed by the Police Protective League or a career public-sector staffer who has racked up a long list of endorsements from unions and Democratic lawmakers.
Tim Gaspar, 44, founded an eponymous insurance agency in the Valley, which he sold in 2021and is now campaigning full time to win the Third District council seat, according to campaign spokesperson Haley Townes. He was the top vote-getter in the June 2 primary, garnering 46.1% of the vote.
Barri Worth Girvan, 43, was a close second with 42.5% of the vote. She is the director of community affairs for Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsay Horvath and previously held staff positions with former L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former Democratic state senator Bob Hertzberg.
The winner of the Nov. 3 runoff will replace termed-out council member Bob Blumenfield, who recently endorsed Gaspar, as did Christopher Celona, the third-place finisher in the primary.
“We feel like those are the endorsements that resonate with voters here,” Gaspar told a group of voters at a recent campaign event.
L.A. City Council Candidate Tim Gaspar speaks with Dr. Lawrence Kaplan during a Kids on the Spectrum Bowling League event at Lucky Strike Bowling Alley this month.
(Arwen Clemans/Los Angeles Times)
In an interview, Gaspar said the City Council could benefit from his business experience to counter members whose backgrounds are mostly in public policy or community organizing.
“They’re missing the business perspective,” he said. “Sometimes you need to do things that might be unpopular if it’s going to be something that benefits the greater good. A healthy economy is the tide that raises all ships.”
L.A. City Council Barri Worth Girvan chats wth LAPD Capt. Rudy Lopez while greeting voters during a recent neighborhood National Night Out event in Canoga Park’s Lanark Park.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Worth Girvan, by contrast, says her years of experience in the public sector will ensure that she can best navigate City Hall to advocate for the district’s interests.
“Delivering core city services is my bread and butter,” she said in an interview. “If your trash isn’t picked up, if your trees aren’t trimmed, if your street lights aren’t working, if you pick up the phone to call 911 and nobody responds, then not only is your neighborhood not safe, but your city is not working for you.”
Gaspar has a huge lead in fund-raising, reporting more than $180,000 in donations to his runoff campaign through June 30, compared with about $31,000 for Worth Girvan.
In addition, companies and special interests including Airbnb, Uber, the California Apartment Association, the L.A. Police Protective League and IBEW Local 18 spent $1.39 million through independent expenditure committees in the primary race.
Airbnb spokeswoman Nicolette Velasquez said the candidates it backs, including Gaspar, are in favor of expanding short-term rental policies to allow homeowners to supplement their income by renting out their homes. Hotel companies and the unions representing hotel workers oppose such expanding the short-term rental market out of existing housing stock.
Worth Girvan asserts that her second-place finish in June was effectively “a virtual tie” given all the money companies and others spent to back Gaspar.
“We were massively outspent with that kind of money, but the voters clearly spoke, and we’re expecting an even broader electorate in the general,” she said.
Tim Gaspar outside the Lucky Strike Bowling Alley.
(Arwen Clemans/Los Angeles Times)
Gaspar’s contributors in the runoff include billionaire developer Rick Caruso and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.
Worth Girvan has picked up donations from state Assemblyman Mark Gonzalez (D-Boyle Heights), former Democratic state Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and former Los Angeles City Council member David Ryu,according to her filing.
She also touts endorsements from a long list of Democratic lawmakers, including state Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica) and Rep. Luz Rivas (D-North Hollywood)., and has strong backing from labor including the local chapters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Service Employees International Union and the including the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.
“Barri was a clear choice for us,” said Devin Osiri, Chief of Staff at the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. “Our unions have actually worked with her at all three levels of government. Her reputation, her professional resume from the Valley and her personal story are just more reflective of the LA Federation of Labor.”
The two candidates differ on housing policy.
Barri Worth Girvan meets voters at the National Night Out event in Canoga Park’s Lanark Park.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Worth Girvan said she supports more housing development, particularly near transit lines, saying the West Valley “needs to do our part” to scale up construction and bring housing prices down.
Gaspar said District 3 is already doing its part to bring in new housing development in areas like Warner Center, and remains skeptical of increasing density in single-family home neighborhoods.
He opposes rent control and some of the city’s current tenant protections, and said at the campaign event that he has a “zero tolerance policy” for homeless encampments.
Both candidates say public safety is their top priority, and they support expanding the Los Angeles Police Department.
