We all recently watched as a woman went crazy in Times Square, wielding two knives; many of us saw on video how the police Tasers had little effect, so the officers resorted to firearms; the attacker is now dead, as is one of her victims.
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Now, a former New York Police Department detective and an expert on Tasers may have an explanation as to why the Tasers didn’t work; to put it simply, she was too overweight for the tasers to have much effect. He’s probably right. You can see why, in fact, in the photos and video that have been released.
The surprising reasons why tasers didn’t stop crazed Times Square stabber https://t.co/WRAtIPYkly pic.twitter.com/zuvHlsCZao
— New York Post (@nypost) September 1, 2026
The expert, one Artur Sadowski, had some thoughts.
Artur Sadowski, a retired NYPD detective and Taser expert, said Pamela Cisernos, 49, was able to fight off multiple Taser deployments because the officers were unable to make solid contact with the waddling killer.
“The thicker the padding in front of the muscles, the more difficult it is for the taser to get to the muscles and be effective,” Sadowski said Tuesday of the body-fat factor.
Sadowski, who wrote the Taser playbook that the NYPD used for training, noted that the devices can only work when both of its probes make solid contact — and that there was enough distance between the officers and jostling stabber to make that all but impossible.
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To put it very bluntly: The Tasers didn’t work because Pamela Cisneros was too fat.
When the cops tried tasing her to bring her down, they appeared to hit her at least once in the middle of her stomach, Sadowski said.
But “even when probes hit, a narrow spread, thick clothing, or body fat can limit the electrical effect,” the former Axon master instructor said, adding that areas like the back and back of the legs have less fat and make tasers more effective.
“She may have felt pain or muscle cramping in her abdomen but not enough to stop her from advancing.”
From a scientific standpoint, that makes a lot of sense. Tasers work, in effect, by overloading the muscle’s nerve impulses, which are, of course, electricity. But the voltage is minuscule compared to a Taser; the charge delivered by the taser into muscle tissue causes the tissues to seize and lock at maximum contraction. That doesn’t work, of course, unless the leads hit muscle tissue. If one of the officers had been able to hit her in the back, or possibly in the legs, the Taser may have had more effect, as those areas don’t typically have the same fat padding as the chest and abdomen. But, like in any such encounter, the officers didn’t have time to maneuver or aim carefully; they were, as the video clearly shows, dealing with an obvious lunatic who was waving two knives; they knew the lunatic had already attacked two people, and she was advancing on them.
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This is the danger of armchair quarterbacking. We have already heard the complaints about why they didn’t Tase her more, even though the tasers clearly were not effective, even though the woman appeared to be within the 15-foot danger zone; even a woman, even as heavy as Pamela Cisneros appeared to be, can generally close with a person and get a knife in them before they can react.
It’s likely that now the NYPD training manuals will get a new warning included: Tasers may not be effective on people who are overweight.
Editor’s Note: The American people overwhelmingly support President Trump’s law and order agenda.
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