Gary Cabana, who stabbed two employees at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) last March, has been indicted on two counts of attempted murder in the second degree, two counts of assault in the second degree, and two counts of attempted assault in the first degree, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s (DA) Office.
Last March, 60-year-old Cabana walked into the museum via its Film Center entrance, leaped over the reception desk, and stabbed two front desk workers in the back, neck, and torso. The museum was evacuated and the two employees were rushed to Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital. Both victims survived.
Cabana allegedly launched the attack after he was denied entry to the museum on March 12, 2022. His MoMA membership had been revoked days earlier following “a series of verbal altercations with patrons and employees,” according to the DA. New York Police Department footage shows a museum guard throwing objects at Cabana while the front desk workers attempt to escape.
Cabana wrote disgruntled posts about the museum on his social media feeds before he was arrested in Philadelphia a few days later, after setting a hotel room on fire. Last week, he was extradited to New York.
The suspect’s last listed address was a nonprofit affordable housing building and shelter in Midtown, Manhattan. He had lost his job as a Broadway usher a few months earlier, and people who knew Cabana before the stabbings said he was struggling with mental health issues.
“Everyone deserves to be safe in their workplace,” Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg said in a statement announcing the charges. “We will not tolerate violence against hardworking New Yorkers.”
MoMA has not yet replied to Hyperallergic‘s immediate request for comment regarding the indictment. A few days after the stabbing attack in March, the museum informed staff that it had renewed a controversial contract with the New York Police Department (NYPD), a relationship some workers had fought to end during Black Lives Matter protests against police violence in 2020.
