MoMA Stabbing Suspect Reportedly Rants On Social Media, Compares Attack To 'Scream'
“It wasn't SCREAM 6 at MoMA,” Gary Cabana reportedly posted on social media on March 13 as police were scrambling to locate him following a knife attack on two museum workers.
Police are looking for a 60-year-old man accused of stabbing two Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) workers during a violent attack at the popular city attraction on Saturday.
On March 12, police were dispatched to the midtown Manhattan museum shortly after 4:00 p.m. following reports of a knife attack.
Two 24-year-old employees, a man and a woman, suffered stab wounds in the vicious confrontation. The woman victim was stabbed in the back and neck. Her co-worker sustained a single stable wound to his collarbone. Both victims were taken to a local hospital in stable condition.
Authorities later identified Gary Cabana as the suspected perpetrator of the incident.
Disturbing video footage of the encounter, which Oxygen.com reviewed, shows the assailant, clad in black, bursting through the museum lobby’s revolving doors. He sprints towards the reception desk, quickly scales it, and begins slashing at a trio of workers huddled behind the work station. A security guard on a two-way radio frantically circled the desk, swinging and throwing what appeared to be a work tablet at the man in a desperate attempt to fend him off.
In one frame of the 33-second clip, Cabana can be seen clearly driving his blade into the lower back of one of the victims as she attempted to flee.
By the time authorities had arrived, Cabana had left. A motive hasn’t been released by police but Cabana allegedly launched his attack after being denied entry to a film screening at the museum.
Cabana reportedly later took to social media to taunt police, victims, and the media, describing the stabbing as “poetic justice.”
On March 13, the wanted man again reportedly ranted online, this time claiming he had bi-polar disorder and referring to the MoMA stabbing as a “total frame job.”
“NOTE to catty beeyotches of the world, words are sharper than knives,” Gary Cabana reportedly wrote on Facebook. “Bipolar is a tough road to hoe. Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. THEN U get framed ind evicted from MoMA (not just the movies, ALL THE ART too) by a bitter old woman who shushes U when U LAUGH during a comedy. She's the menace, NOT ME.”
Cabana also appeared to make a cryptic reference to Wes Craven’s blockbuster slasher franchise “Scream” in the short Facebook post.
“It wasn't SCREAM 6 at MoMA it was poke poke poke wake-up call,” he added.
Detectives questioned staff and residents at the Manhattan homeless shelter at which Cabana was believed to be staying, but were unable to locate him through the weekend. As of Monday morning, he remained at large.
Some shelter residents who briefly knew Cabana described him as a quiet and reserved introvert.
“I know him,” Elmer Olsen, 64, told the New York Post. “He’s my neighbor. Been here about three weeks. Three or four weeks. He’s quiet. Never says a word. Just nodded.”
Police haven’t released additional updates regarding the ongoing investigation. A spokesperson for the New York City Police Department declined to comment this week.
MoMA remained closed to visitors on Monday but said it planned to reopen on Tuesday. A spokesperson for the museum didn’t immediately respond to Oxygen.com’s request for comment on the incident on Monday morning.
Anyone with additional information pertaining to Cabana’s whereabouts are urged to contact the New York City Police Department tip line at 1800-577-8477.