Wes Bourland, a musician, said Cabana was a regular at Feinstein’s/54 Below, a cabaret bar on West 54th Street where Bourland often performs.
“He was a huge theater fan,” Bourland said. “He had tons of photos of him with actors.”
Recently, Bourland said, Cabana had been sharing conspiracies and other posts on social media that bordered on harassment, including against bar employees he accused of harming him.
“There are stories about this guy throughout the theater community,” Bourland added.
Friends also said that Cabana lived alone in Manhattan and had little contact with the outside world. When the pandemic began in 2020, it was an experience of personal loss for Cabana, who lost his livelihood working as an usher on Broadway when theaters closed across the city, Varney said.
“He would get very frustrated with people not masking up and not getting vaccinated and stuff,” Varney said. “He loved being an usher. He was an usher for a long time and talked about the shows and everything.”
Anna Blair, an actress and singer who said she met Cabana in college, recalled her “support group” of friends who had cared for him in the past.
“COVID hit him hard loneliness-wise,” Blair said. “No one was able to visit him.”
Cabana had come to the museum on Saturday to see a movie, but was turned away by employees because his membership had been revoked “as a result of two disturbance-related incidents here at the museum on two separate dates in the past few days,” according to Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism of the New York Police Department, John Miller. Both victims, a 24-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman who worked at the museum, were expected to survive, authorities said.
At a news conference Monday, Mayor Eric Adams said he was praying for the victims and vowed to catch the suspected shooter.
“We know who he is and the police department will take him into custody,” Adams said.
