A 17-year-old New Yorker has been arrested and is being prosecuted for the racist and homophobic murder of a black and gay dancer, the mayor and police announced on Saturday.
O’Shae Sibley, 28, was stabbed to death with a single stab wound to the chest on July 29 at a Brooklyn gas station.
Since then, this alleged intentional homicide has caused great emotion in the African-American and LGBTQ+ communities of the megalopolis.
During a press conference at the scene of the tragedy, the mayor of New York, Eric Adams, and a chief of the municipal police (NYPD), Joe Kenny, announced charges for a “hate crime” against the teenager, who visited on Friday evening.
Most of the drama was caught on cameras at the gas station where it happened.
Last Saturday, O’Shea Sibley and other men, seen in shorts and bare chested in these television images, stopped by car at this Brooklyn gas station.
“As they waited to refuel their vehicle, Mr. Sibley and his group began dancing to music from their car stereo,” Officer Kenny said.
At this time, a “violent argument” breaks out with other young people.
“The group started yelling at Mr Sibley and his friends, belittling him and hurling homophobic slurs at him,” the officer said.
The alleged attackers “also made hostile remarks to black people, demanding that they simply stop dancing”.
The confrontation lasted four minutes until Mr Sibley was ‘stabbed once’ in the chest, causing his death an hour later in hospital, according to Mr Kenny’s account.
O’Shea Sibley is known in New York as a professional dancer, including “vogue” (or “voguing”), an urban dance inspired by fashion shows and performed by members of the LGBTQ+ and African-American communities.
Tributes have been held for a week. Singer Beyoncé and filmmaker Spike Lee hailed her memory.
2023-08-06 02:41:25
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