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A 17-year-old has been charged with homicide within the killing of O’Shae Sibley, who was stabbed to demise on July 29 after a dispute over his dancing at a Brooklyn gasoline station.
Mr. Sibley, a homosexual man who was knowledgeable dancer and choreographer, was coming back from New Jersey to his dwelling in Brooklyn with 4 associates that night time when the group stopped at a gasoline station within the Midwood neighborhood, the police mentioned on Saturday. As they stuffed up their automotive, they performed Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” album and started dancing, officers mentioned, at which level a gaggle of males approached and instructed them to cease.
“We will see on the video the heated verbal dispute rapidly turns bodily,” Joseph Kenny, an assistant chief on the New York Police Division’s detective bureau, mentioned at a information convention with Mayor Eric Adams asserting the arrest.
The boys yelled homophobic slurs and anti-Black statements at Mr. Sibley, who was Black, and his associates, Mr. Kenny mentioned, all whereas demanding they cease dancing. Bystanders acted as “peacemakers,” and the lads shouting at Mr. Sibley’s group started to disperse, Mr. Kenny mentioned — aside from the defendant.
Video of the encounter, which lasted about 4 minutes, exhibits {the teenager} stabbing Mr. Sibley as soon as within the chest, “damaging his coronary heart,” Mr. Kenny mentioned. A witness mentioned {the teenager} then jumped right into a Toyota Highlander that sped off. Mr. Sibley was taken to Maimonides Medical Heart, the place he was pronounced useless that night time.
{The teenager}, whom the police didn’t identify, lives in Brooklyn and was recognized by the police earlier this week utilizing video and by working with different metropolis companies, Mr. Kenny mentioned. The suspect turned himself in by means of an association together with his lawyer, Mr. Kenny added. He has been charged with second-degree homicide, which has been charged as a hate crime, and with felony possession of a weapon.
On the information convention, Mr. Adams mentioned that Mr. Sibley’s household had been affected by one thing that “clearly” was a hate crime.
“This can be a metropolis the place you’re free to specific your self,” Mr. Adams mentioned. “And that expression ought to by no means finish with any type of violence.”
For many individuals, the demise of Mr. Sibley — whom associates described as pleasant, fun-loving and enthusiastic about his artwork — was a stunning and violent reminder of the discrimination L.G.B.T.Q. folks face. It impressed an outpouring of grief over a number of days.
On Thursday night, about 80 mourners gathered on the Stonewall Inn, the Greenwich Village bar often called the cradle of the homosexual rights motion. The subsequent night time, at an occasion on the Midwood Mobil station the place Mr. Sibley was killed, attendees had been inspired to “vogue as an act of resistance” — a reference to the fashion of dance carried out by Mr. Sibley and his associates. The Lesbian, Homosexual, Bisexual and Transgender Group Heart in Greenwich Village introduced it will maintain a memorial on Saturday night. Public figures have additionally paid tribute: On Beyoncé’s web site, “Relaxation in Energy O’Shae Sibley” was prominently displayed in opposition to a black backdrop.
Summy Ullah, a 32-year-old gasoline station attendant who witnessed the confrontation, mentioned one of many males who approached Mr. Sibley and his associates had mentioned: “I’m Muslim. I don’t need this right here.”
On the information convention on Saturday, flanked by leaders from the town’s homosexual and Muslim communities, Mr. Adams emphasised that Mr. Sibley’s killing was not proof of hatred directed at L.G.B.T.Q. folks by Muslims in New York, and spoke about how each teams have been victims of hate. The 2 communities “stand united in opposition to preventing any type of hate on this metropolis,” he mentioned.
Lee Soulja Simmons, govt director of the NYC Heart For Black Pleasure, mentioned he met Mr. Sibley about six years in the past when Mr. Sibley was performing in an Off Broadway present about Black satisfaction.
Mr. Simmons mentioned that Black homosexual New Yorkers had been wrestling together with his demise, whereas additionally dwelling with the specter of hate crimes and discrimination being directed at them due to their identities.
Mr. Sibley “was doing nothing extra however vogueing and dancing right here,” he added. “He didn’t need to die in that method.”
Maria Cramer, Wesley Parnell and Erin Nolan contributed reporting.
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