Ayyyeee… What’s Goodie Everyone. I have some tea and it involves a stabbing that occured at the Museum of Modern Art this weekend.
A man who was denied entry to the Museum of Modern Art due to his membership being revoked jumped over the reception desk and stabbed two employees on Saturday March 12th in afternoon hours. The attack was captured by surveillance video from the museum on West 53rd Street that police released on Sunday along with photos of the suspect who is a 60 year old man named Gary Cabana, who was still being sought. The victims, a 24 year old woman stabbed in the back and neck and a 24 year old man stabbed in the left collar bone, were listed in stable condition at Bellevue Hospital, the police said.
The video shows the man barrel through a revolving door and climb across the wooden counter with a knife in his hand, cornering three people behind the desk. After stumbling into a wall, he begins jabbing and swinging the knife while the employees cower under the desk. The video shows him grabbing one worker as the worker tried to run past him, then swinging the knife into the worker’s torso. The attacker then releases the worker. Another worker manages to run past the attacker as a man in a suit threw items at him.
At a news conference outside the museum, John Miller, the deputy commissioner for the Police Department’s Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureaus, said the membership had “expired as a result of two incidents involving disorderly conduct here at the museum on two separate dates in recent days.” Police officials said the letter revoking the suspect’s membership had gone out on Friday, but he appeared at the museum on Saturday, seeking to watch a film. He added that the assailant was recorded on video leaving the museum after the attack. He was described as a white man wearing a colorful patterned shirt under a black jacket, and a blue surgical mask. When the attacker was denied entry, he became “upset,” and then “proceeded to attack and stab two employees of the museum multiple times,” Miller said.
Cabana’s last known address was a supportive housing residence in Midtown operated by a nonprofit, Breaking Ground, offering shelter for the homeless, the mentally ill and those diagnosed with H.I.V./AIDS, the police said, and he had no prior arrests. Police pulled up to the building where Cabana lives on Sunday afternoon, but would not comment. A fellow resident said Cabana spent a great deal of time in the computer lab in the basement of the building. “He goes down there and chats on the computer,” said Will Fredo who is a resident.
According to The Times; The attack on Sunday occurred shortly before a 4:30 showing of the 1938 film, “Bringing Up Baby.” Alessandro Pugliese, who works in communications, said he had arrived at MoMA for the movie when three attendants at the desk near the museum’s film entrance started screaming. After turning around, he said he witnessed the attacker stab one person in the back and another in the neck. The security guard near the entrance proceeded to pick up what appeared to be a large binder and throw it at the attacker to distract him.
The attacker was still holding his knife when he asked where the security guard’s gun was. Then he ran outside the museum.
Fabien Levy, a spokesman for Mayor Eric Adams, said the mayor had been briefed on the attack, which appeared to be “an isolated, criminal incident.”
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