Look around
Both attacks unfolded in ordinary places, among people running errands, and that is exactly why the signs are easy to miss.
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Both attacks unfolded in ordinary places, among people running errands, and that is exactly why the signs are easy to miss.
On 31 August, in New York’s Times Square, Pamela Cisneros pulled two knives from a red shopping bag, stabbed a 68-year-old man who had just left the subway, then walked north and, less than 20 seconds later, stabbed a 32-year-old woman in the abdomen.
That second victim was a bank executive who, according to news accounts, had just returned from five months of maternity leave and was walking home to her infant daughter.
A street vendor called 911 as she fell; police found Cisneros minutes later holding a knife in each hand, talked to her for four minutes, then opened fire when she moved toward them. She was declared dead at the hospital.
In Taipei in December 2025, 27-year-old Chang Wen spent the afternoon setting fires around the city, torching vehicles and eventually his own apartment. He then donned a gas mask and bulletproof vest and hauled equipment toward Taipei Main Station, where he set off a smoke bomb and stabbed fleeing commuters, killing a man who tried to stop him.
Chang escaped underground, ran to a hotel where he retrieved more weapons, and resumed the attack at a department store near Zhongshan Station, moving floor to floor before falling to his death while fleeing police. Three people died, 11 were hurt, and investigators later learned Chang had been planning the attack since the previous April.
These two cases sit at opposite ends of the same problem.
There was almost no warning in Times Square: Cisneros produced her knives and struck within seconds, and neither victim had a realistic chance of seeing it coming. What awareness can change, in a case like that, is everything that happens after the first strike: how fast the alarm goes up and whether the nearest bystander freezes or moves.
Chang, by contrast, left a trail of smoke, fire, a mask, and strange movements long enough that a different set of eyes might have cut him off.
Both attacks unfolded in ordinary places, among people running errands, doing ordinary things, and that is exactly why the signs were easy to miss, not because they were rare, but because we hardly pay attention to them.
Picture Divisoria on a Saturday: vendors shouting, carts squeezing through the crowds, a stranger’s shoulder against yours, your phone buzzing in your pocket.
We have grown so used to the noise that it has stopped registering with us, which is exactly when something out of place slips past unnoticed: smoke, a person moving against the flow, a sudden weapon, a crowd suddenly running in one direction.
Situational awareness means being attuned enough to notice when something shifts, but not assuming that every backpack or fast walker means trouble. This does not require heroics. If you see a knife, move away rather than toward it, warn the people nearest you, alert security, call the police, and remember what you saw, but do not stop to film it.
Cameras, alarms, and guards matter, but before any of them can respond, usually it’s an ordinary person nearby who notices first, and that might be you.
So the next time you are walking through Divisoria, Quiapo, a packed mall, or a crowded MRT platform, put the phone away. Look up, look around, because before the sirens arrive, your own eyes may be all you have.
Be aware, be safe.
