A Brooklyn man has been convicted in the killing of beloved Philadelphia dancer O’Shae Sibley, who was stabbed to death at a New York City gas station in 2023.
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Dmitriy Popov, 20, was convicted of manslaughter as a hate crime and other charges related to “taunting, stabbing, and killing” Sibley, which included “hurling homophobic and anti-Black slurs,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a statement.
Sibley, 28, was a gay Black man, while Popov, who was 17 at the time of the killing, is white. Popov, who was tried as an adult, faces up to 25 years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for June 30.
While filling up their car with gas on a Saturday night in July 2023 after a trip to the beach, Sibley and four of his friends blasted music by Beyoncé and started dancing, according to Joan Myers Brown, founder of the Philadelphia Dance Company and Sibley’s former teacher.
Popov and two associates approached the car and threatened the group with racist and homophobic slurs, telling them they didn’t want to see gay men dancing in their neighborhood, Gonzalez said.
His associates left the gas station, but Popov remained and continued to taunt the group of dancing friends. Ultimately, he stabbed Sibley on the side of his chest with a knife, puncturing his heart, Gonzalez said. He was pronounced dead a short time later at a nearby Brooklyn hospital.
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“O’Shae Sibley moved to New York to pursue his dream of being a dancer and choreographer, and his life was cut short when he was killed by this defendant, who couldn’t stand the sight of O’Shae and his friends just being themselves and living their lives openly as Black gay men,” Gonzalez said, offering his hope that the verdict “will bring O’Shae’s family, his friends, and the larger community some measure of solace.”
A North Philadelphia native, Sibley moved to New York before the COVID pandemic in 2020 and landed a job as a dancer and choreographer with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Ailey Extension. He danced in several music videos and performed at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York.
During a celebration of O’Shea’s life at The Met in Philadelphia in 2023. Otis Pena, who was with Sibley the night he was killed, recalled his friend as authentic and unapologetically himself.
“O’Shae was a beacon of light for a lot of us in our community that was engulfed in darkness,” Pena said then. “But O’Shae rejoiced. O’Shae was O’Shae.”
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