Over the weekend, 28-year-old O’Shae Sibley was stabbed to death at a Brooklyn gas station. Authorities are now investigating this incident as a potential hate crime.
Sibley went to the gas station with friends late Saturday night. They were filling up the car with gas “and blasting music by Beyoncé when a group of men approached and told them to stop dancing.”
After the men started using bigoted slurs towards him and his friends, Sibley, who is a gay Black man and a professional choreographer and dancer, confronted the men insulting them. The argument turned deadly when one of the men stabbed Sibley in the torso.
Surveillance footage shows the deceased in a dispute with a group of people on the night in question at the gas station on Coney Island Avenue in the Midwood neighborhood. One witness said that Sibley tried to deescalate the situation to no avail, and the suspect “pulled out a knife and he just stabbed him and he ran away.”
Otis Pena, one of Sibley’s best friends said he “pressed on his wound to stop the bleeding before he was taken to Maimonides Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.”
Pena posted a Facebook video hours after Sibley’s death saying, “They murdered him because he’s gay, because he stood up for his friends,” continuing “His name was O’Shae and you all killed him. You all murdered him right in front of me.”
As of Monday, no arrests had been made, but NYPD has involved the hate crimes unit in their investigation. According to police, the suspect is a dark-haired teenager who “was last seen wearing a black shirt and red shorts.”
Sibley’s family and friends are stunned and at a loss “by the senseless crime and the fact that an argument could turn deadly.”
Beckenbaur Hamilton was Sibley’s neighbor for three years and told CBS “I’m still in shock. Each time I hear the door, I keep looking for O’Shae to come out.” Hamilton added, “They were dancing. They were filling up on gas, but they were voguing… I wasn’t there, but I can tell you just from what I saw that’s just how they are. He comes out here and stops the music and just starts dancing and voguing and carrying on.”
Sibley was a participant in the Ailey Organization, which released a statement saying “O’Shea [sic] had incredible energy in the studio and was loved by instructors and fellow students.”
The loss of Sibley is a blow to his “family – he is one of 11 siblings – and [has] unnerved the city’s gay community.” Since last June, according to a report from the Anti-Defamation League and GLAAD advocacy group, there has been a marked increase in violence and harassment toward the LGBTQ+ community, including in online forums. “In the first three weeks of June there were 101 such incidents, more than twice the number during the same time period the year before.”
Police request that anyone with information about the stabbing call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
You can also submit a tip via their website or via DM on Twitter, @NYPDTips. All calls are confidential.