A 28-year-old professional dancer was stabbed to death at a Brooklyn gas station Saturday night in an incident that police are investigating as a homophobic hate crime.
O’Shae Sibley and his friends stopped to fuel up at a Mobil gas station on Coney Island Avenue in Midwood around 11 p.m., on their way home after a day at the beach, according to family and friends. The group was playing Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” album and dancing a modern style called “voguing,” according to a video posted by one of the witnesses on Facebook. Surveillance video from the gas station shows they were shirtless in their bathing suits on a sweltering night.
According to witnesses interviewed by the Daily News, Sibley and his friends were approached by a group of men outside the convenience store, who claimed the flamboyant behavior offended their Muslim faith.
Surveillance video from outside the store captured a heated verbal exchange between the two groups. Sibley, tall in pink swim trunks, stands by his buddies as they argue with the other men.
After a few minutes, Sibley and his friends turn to head back to their white sedan. But one of the men in the other group begins filming them with his phone, prompting Sibley and two of his friends to come back to the front of the store to continue the confrontation. A bystander appears to try to come in between the groups to diffuse the situation, but Sibley and the men disappear for a few seconds around the side of the store.
When Sibley is fully visible again, he has been stabbed, and appears stunned on the sidewalk as his friends scramble to stop the bleeding from his wound.
One of those friends was Otis Pena, who posted a Facebook Live video on his profile page Sunday, the day after the incident.
“They killed O’Shae,” he repeats over and over again through tears in that video. “They killed my brother right in front of me. I’m covered in his blood.”
In the Facebook Live video, Pena explains that the beach outing was a…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply