NEW YORK, NY.- Two employees were stabbed at the Museum of Modern Art in midtown Manhattan Saturday afternoon, police said. The suspect, who was still being sought, was a man whose membership had recently been revoked because of disorderly conduct, authorities said.

John Miller, deputy commissioner for the Police Department’s Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureaus, said the suspect was denied entrance to the museum around 4:15 p.m.

The man became upset and then “jumped over the reception desk and proceeded to attack and stab two employees of the museum multiple times,” Miller said.

The victims were wounded in the neck, back and collarbone areas and were rushed to Bellevue Hospital, where both were in stable condition.

Julia Garcia Valles, 24, a tourist from Spain, was waiting in line on West 53rd Street to enter the museum when people shouting “shooting” began to rush out the doors in a panic. Some fell to the floor in the confusion, she said.

“We were really scared,” she added.

Fabien Levy, a spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams, said the mayor had been briefed on the attack, which appeared to be “an isolated criminal incident.”

Alyssa Katz, deputy editor for local news site The City, was on her way to meet friends at the museum when she saw people running out. Katz, 53, said she spoke to two frightened French tourists who said they had seen someone stabbed in the underarm area.

Her friend Mike Rubin, 55, a writer who contributes to The New York Times and other publications, was waiting for Katz in the lobby when a security guard told his group to leave the building immediately. He later spoke to a witness who said he had seen someone barge past the guards and stab two women who worked at the museum.

Rubin had hoped to see the Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Joseph E. Yoakum exhibits. Outside the museum, “it was like a game of telephone” among people who rushed out, he said. “No one knew what was happening.”

Christian Desrosiers, 34, an entrepreneur, said his ticket was being scanned when the commotion began.

He added that he was one of the first people to run outside after he saw three women in front of him rush for the exit.

“They turned around on a dime and started sprinting out, so I figured that I would join them,” he said. “People were clearly hustling to get out, but nobody was screaming, at least at the time I was in there.”

Wendy Keffer, 42, was visiting from Austin, Texas, with her husband and two children. She was walking in line for a 4 p.m. slot when they were told to evacuate.

“We were entering the museum, and as we were about to walk inside, we saw hundreds of people running out, and everybody was yelling, 'Shooter, shooter,'” she said. “It was very scary.”

Police said there was no indication that shots were fired.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.