Cops evacuate NYC church as manhunt for accused MoMA stabber continues
Panic erupted at a Manhattan church Monday after a 911 call came in about the possible sighting of the deranged homeless man accused of stabbing two Museum of Modern Art employees, police sources said.
The call prompted the evacuation of St. Francis of Assisi Church on West 31st Street just before noon — as cops stormed the building and searched pew to pew for fugitive Gary Cabana, 60, sources said.
But they came up empty.
“Somebody calls 911 and says, ‘Hey, the guy you’re looking for the museum thing, I just saw him go into the church,'” a high-ranking police source told The Post.
“And then somebody else says, ‘He went into this building and he didn’t come out,'” the source said. “They find the guy and it turns out not to be the right guy. It’s just a guy who looks like the MoMA guy.
“We’re looking for him,” the source added. “We’ll get him.”
Cabana remains on the lam after allegedly jumping the counter at MoMA on Saturday afternoon, stabbing two employees and fleeing — angry that his membership had been revoked.
The two employees suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the attack.
Police said Cabana went berserk after learning his membership to the famed museum was nixed because of two recent outbursts there.
While he remains in the wind, Cabana has blabbed on social media, berating the museum and taunting cops for not being able to find him.
On Sunday night, he told The Post he “lost it” when he was barred from seeing Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” on Saturday.
“The stabbed girls were in on the BACKSTABBING too,” Cabana messaged a reporter. “I don’t backstab, I do the frontside only.”
In online rants on Facebook and Instagram over the weekend, Cabana accused MoMA of “a frame job” while ridiculing cops for not finding him and patrons for not intervening as he attacked the two employees.
“They knew who I was all along but the morons wasted hours searching the museum when I was OBVIOUSLY LONG GONE with hundreds of witnesses WATCHING but no HEROES in the crowd that day,” he said in an Instagram screed.
“NYC has turned to a bunch of MIND-YO-BIDNESS P—SIES,” he wrote. “Not one person followed me as I run down 53rd st with a bloody face from where the security hit me with a piece of lucite….”
The terrifying attack was caught on surveillance video released by police, showing Cabana hopping over the counter in a rage, lunging at two cowering employees and stabbing them repeatedly. A security guard hurls an object at his head — and then Cabana flees, the clips show.
Cabana’s online posts indicate he frequented New York City’s cultural institutions, including theaters, music venues and museums.
He is also a failed actor, with one credit listed on IMDb under the professional name GoGo Toucette for his role as a man obsessed with pop icon Madonna.
In addition to the 2009 credit on “Madonna: Celebration – The Video Collection,” Cabana claimed uncredited contributions to flicks including 2005’s “War of the Worlds” and the 2000 film “The Legend of Bagger Vance.”
The Screen Actors Guild did not immediately confirm if Cabana has a union card.
MoMA officials have not commented on the incident other than to say the museum is scheduled to reopen Tuesday.
Additional reporting by Steven Vago
