The teenager being accused of stabbing O’Shae Sibley has pleaded not guilty to nine counts in the death of the professional dancer, according to CNN.
Dmitriy Popov, 17, is being charged as an adult in the killing of O’Shae Sibley, his attorney and prosecutors said. A grand jury indicted Popov Thursday for murder in the second degree as a hate crime, manslaughter in the first degree as a hate crime, weapons possession and other charges. Defense attorney Mark Henry Pollard believes his client is not guilty, is remorseful and might claim self-defense. Pollard said there is nothing in his client’s past that shows he is the type of person to commit such a crime. “I strongly suspect that we will be going self-defense, and that he had a reasonable grounds to reasonably… believe that he had to defend himself in this situation,” Pollard said.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez on Thursday referred to Sibley’s death as being tragic. “O’Shae and his friends were allegedly targeted, because they were dancing, they were being themselves, dancing joyfully to Beyoncé music at a Brooklyn gas station, harming no one, and refusing to stop even when confronted with anti-Black and homophobic slurs demanding that they stop dancing,” Gonzalez said.
As we previously reported, Sibley and four friends were dancing and vogueing to one of Beyonce’s latest songs from her Renaissance album. A customer reportedly exited the store and confronted the dancing group of friends before being joined by several other men leaving the store. Gas station shop worker, Summy Ullah told reporters that the provoking group said the dancing offended them as Muslims.
The crime was caught on security footage. After a verbal altercation, Sibley and his friends began walking back to their car when one of the men in the attacking group started filming. Sibley and his friends made their way back toward the men outside the storefront and the two groups walked around the corner of the building, where one of the men stabbed Sibley in the torso.
Ullah said he recognized the attackers as a smoke shop worker and his friends, who frequently used the gas station shop’s bathroom.
Sibley’s friend Otis Pena, who was with him at the gas station, posted a Facebook Live video on Sunday, July 30. He said the group of friends had gone to the beach to celebrate his birthday and stopped at the gas station on the way back to his home two blocks away. He stated that the attackers had launched homophobic slurs and that Sibley had responded with, “Yeah, we’re gay, but we’re just celebrating my brother’s birthday.”
“They murdered him because he was gay, because he stood up for his friends,” Pena says in the video, his eyes red as he fights back tears. “And they stabbed him, right in the heart. They took the one thing I always fought for. They killed my brother right in front of me. I’m covered in his blood.” He describes holding Sibley and putting his hand on the stab wound.
We also shared that Beyonce paid tribute to the dancer as well sharing a message to her website saying, “Rest In Power O’Shae Sibley.”