Stabbing of gay man in Brooklyn may have been a hate crime, police say
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The stabbing death of a gay man who had been dancing at a Brooklyn gas station Saturday night is being investigated as a potential hate crime, according to the New York Police Department. O’Shae Sibley, a 28-year-old professional dancer and choreographer, was dancing with friends to Beyoncé’s music while filling up at a gas station when a group of men approached them and told them to stop dancing, according to friends and witnesses.
The men verbally attacked them and used anti-gay slurs, at which point Sibley confronted them, and a man stabbed Sibley moments later when the argument escalated, according to friends and a video that captured the altercation.
The surveillance camera footage, shared by several media outlets, shows Sibley and his friends, shirtless in bathing suits, in a heated argument with another group of men.
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Around 11 p.m., police responded to a 911 call of a person stabbed and found Sibley with a stab wound in the torso. He was taken to Maimonides Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
On Monday, police said there had been no arrests and that the investigation was ongoing.
Otis Pena, one of Sibley’s best friends, tried to help him by pressing his wound to stop the bleeding while he lay on the ground before responders arrived, Pena said in a Facebook video he posted a few hours after the incident.
“They killed my brother right in front of me,” Pena recounted with tears. “They murdered him because he is gay and he stood up for his friends.”
“You stabbed my brother …” he continued. “Just because he was trying to let people know that we are gay, that we exist, you don’t disrespect.”
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Sibley’s death comes as advocacy groups have warned of a rise in anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment and legislation, particularly targeting transgender people, across the country. A June report by the Anti-Defamation League and the LGBTQ+ advocacy group GLAAD, which collected data from news and direct victim reports, said there were more than 350 incidents of anti-LGBTQ+ harassment, vandalism or assault in the United States from June 2022 through April 2023.
Pena said the friends were out celebrating his birthday that night. At the gas station they were blasting “Renaissance” by Beyoncé and vogueing — a style of dance popularized by the LGBTQ+ community that has become a symbol of pride and protest. In other Facebook posts, Pena shared photos of the scene and of his hands covered in blood, and said some of the men who approached them said they “didn’t like gays.”
He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Sibley had relocated to New York from Philadelphia before the pandemic, looking for more professional dancing opportunities, his aunt Tondra Sibley told several media outlets.
In an interview with Gothamist, she described him as a “gentle spirit” who’d had a passion for dancing since he was a little kid, and who was looking forward to a trip to Disney World with his father.
She described her nephew’s killing as “senseless” and demanded justice.
“Why would a person feel they have the right [to kill] just because they disagree with them?” she said.
Sibley was remembered by his neighbors as a spirited, joyful young man who often danced outside with his friends and was proud of his sexuality.
“O’Shae wasn’t afraid of being who he was,” Beckenbaur Hamilton, his neighbor, told the New York Times.
The Ailey Extension Program, part of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, where Sibley participated as a dancer, lamented his death.
“We are shocked and heartbroken that O’Shae’s life has been taken by senseless violence and extend our sincere condolences to his family and loved ones,” the program said in a statement to The Washington Post.
Source: The Washington Post
