NEW YORK — A teenager suspected in the fatal stabbing of a professional dancer at a New York City gas station while vogueing has surrendered to police, authorities said Friday.
The 17-year-old was charged with second-degree murder, which has been charged as a hate crime; crime murder; and criminal possession of a weapon in the death of O’Shae Sibley, WABC-TV reported. The teen’s name has not been released because he is a minor, the television station reported.
The suspect reportedly turned himself into the 61st Precinct in the Sheepshead Bay area of Brooklyn, according to WABC. Police confirmed the charges and his arrest on Saturday, WCBS reported. The suspect is from Brooklyn and attends high school in the area, CNN reported.
A 17-year-old boy has been charged with murder in the killing of O’Shae Sibley, who was stabbed to death on July 29 after a dispute over his dancing at a Brooklyn gas station. https://t.co/oUfBbzS2z5
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 5, 2023
“We can see on the video the heated verbal dispute quickly turns physical,” Joseph Kenny, an assistant chief with the New York City Police Department’s detective bureau, during a news conference with Mayor Eric Adams, The New York Times reported.
Sibley, 28, was filling up a car with gasoline and was blasting music by 32-time Grammy Award winner Beyoncé when a group of men approached and told him to stop dancing, the Times reported.
The men began using slurs, and Sibley, a gay man who was also a choreographer, confronted them and was stabbed after the argument escalated, according to the newspaper. He was taken to an area hospital, where he later died.
Sibley worked professionally as a dancer in New York and Philadelphia and belonged to several dance troupes in the region, WNBC-TV reported.
Sibley performed with the dance company Philadanco, according to WNBC. He used dance to celebrate his LGBTQ identity in works such as " Soft: A Love Letter to Black Queer Men,” the television station reported.
According to the Times, vogueing is a style of interpretive dance that began as an imitation of fashion models in the 1980s and has evolved as an expression of LGBTQ pride and protest.
Beyoncé paid tribute to Sibley on her website last weekend.
During Saturday’s news conference, Adams spoke about the arrest and how the community is dealing with Sibley’s death, WABC reported.
“So what are we doing as adults that creates this energy of hate? And that energy that’s created it’s not coming from a community, such as the Muslim community that is aware of the hate that they see every day. It’s not coming from the LGBTQ+ community of the hate they experience,” Adams said. “So it’s coming from other entities that we need to fight against and the only way we can win is we are united in our fight and that’s why we’re standing here today on the announcement of this apprehension.”
