NEW YORK (AP) — Police have an individual in custody in reference to the dying of O’Shae Sibley, a homosexual man who was fatally stabbed after a confrontation between a bunch of associates dancing to a Beyoncé tune and a number of other younger males who taunted them, authorities mentioned Friday.
The New York Metropolis Police Division declined to right away establish the particular person or say what prison prices they’d face, if any, describing them solely as a “particular person of curiosity.”
Sibley, a 28-year-old skilled dancer, died July 29 after being stabbed within the torso at a Brooklyn fuel station. His dying outraged New York Metropolis’s LGBTQ+ group and drew tributes from celebrities together with Beyoncé and Spike Lee.
Sibley was at a Mobil station with associates getting fuel, listening to music and dancing shirtless on a scorching evening once they had been heckled by a bunch of younger males. One witness, Summy Ullah, mentioned in interviews that the boys complained that their conduct offended them as Muslims.
Safety digicam video confirmed the 2 teams arguing for a couple of minutes. Each side had walked away when Sibley and a pal abruptly returned and once more confronted one of many younger males, who had stayed behind recording on his cellphone.
On the video, Sibley might be seen following the the teenager after which lunging at him earlier than the 2 disappeared out of the digicam’s view. A second later, he walks backward into view, checking his facet, then collapses to the sidewalk.
One among Sibley’s associates who was there, Otis Pena, mentioned in a Fb video that Sibley was killed as a result of he was homosexual, and “as a result of he stood up for his associates.”
Sibley carried out with the dance firm Philadanco in his native Philadelphia and in New York, the place he took courses with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Ailey Extension program.
Mayor Eric Adams has promised “justice for O’Shae’s household and family members.”
“O’Shae Sibley’s life and delightful spirit had been minimize brief by homophobia,” Adams mentioned in a message posted on social media Tuesday. “Bigotry can by no means take root in our metropolis.”
