Police arrested the teenager Friday in the murder of 28-year-old O’Shae Sibley, who was gay. Authorities refused to identify the defendant.
“Parents lost a child, a child, to something that was clearly a crime of bigotry,” Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain, said during a news conference Saturday outside the Brooklyn gas station where Sibley was assassinated on July 29.
The stabbing occurred after two groups clashed in front of one of the gas pumps, where Sibley was dancing with her friends to a Beyoncé song. Authorities said Sibley’s group was provoked by the other group before the confrontation erupted into violence.
Beyoncé paid tribute to Sibley on her website.
In the security video the two groups are seen arguing for a few minutes. The two parties had walked away when Sibley and a friend abruptly returned and confronted one of the youths, who had been left behind recording with his phone.
In the video, Sibley is seen chasing the teen and then lunging at him before they both disappeared from camera view. A moment later, she walks back and reappears in the footage, checking his side, whereupon he falls to the sidewalk.
Sibley was stabbed in the left ribcage, according to Deputy Police Chief Joe Kenny.
The initial argument lasted about four minutes, police said, as Sibley and four other men stopped for gas while driving home to New York City from New Jersey.
The authorities detailed that the suspect organized his delivery to the police through his lawyer.
Lee Soulja Simmons, executive director of the NYC Center for Black Pride, also spoke at the press conference.
“We fight alongside people within our community who constantly face discrimination, not just because they are black, but because they represent LGBT (communities),” he said. “Because he did nothing but pose and dance there, he didn’t deserve to die that way.”
One of Sibley’s friends who was at the scene, Otis Pena, said in a Facebook video that Sibley was killed because he was gay and “because he stood up for his friends.”
One witness, Summy Ullah, said in interviews that the men complained that their behavior offended them as Muslims.
Some leaders of the area’s Muslim community condemned the killing.
“The weight of this loss is felt deeply, not only by O’Shae’s family and friends, but by all of us who value life, peace and justice,” Soniya Ali, executive director of the Community Center, said Saturday. Muslim. .
“As Muslims, we are committed to upholding justice, even if it means facing ourselves,” he stressed. “We unequivocally condemn the unjust murder of O’Shae.”
Sibley was part of the Philadanco dance company in her native Philadelphia and in New York, where she took classes with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Ailey Extension program.
FOUNTAIN: Associated Press
