queer and dance communities<\/a>. Sibley, whom prosecutors have referred to as an \u201cout and proud\u201d gay Black man and professional dancer, had performed at Lincoln Center and taken classes at the renowned Alvin Ailey Extension. More than a dozen of his loved ones have come to court, mostly in black clothing, listening intently to the proceedings and occasionally breaking down in sobs. Several members of Popov\u2019s family have sat on the other side of the courtroom, at times sighing or wiping their eyes during intense moments of testimony.<\/p>\nSurveillance footage and testimony presented so far at trial has shed new light on how Sibley was killed. Multiple witnesses have testified that Popov and his friends repeatedly shouted homophobic \u2014 and, in at least one case, racist \u2014 slurs before stabbing him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like my life didn\u2019t matter,\u201d Philip Wilson, one of Sibley\u2019s friends who was there that night, testified.<\/p>\n
Two groups collide at a Midwood gas station<\/p>\n
Sibley grew up in Philadelphia and started dancing when he was 12 years old, his mother, Onetha Sibley, testified. After dancing with the Philadelphia Dance Company, also known as Philadanco, he decided to move to New York City in 2019 for better opportunities, his mother said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just had a passion \u2014 a strong passion for it,\u201d she testified. \u201cHe was always dancing somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sibley came to New York with his friend Pena, whom he had met several years earlier through Philadanco, Pena testified. They started in the shelter system and sought support from a city program that helps shelter residents to secure housing. By 2023, Pena had moved to Midwood and had established an annual tradition of celebrating his birthday with his friends at Gunnison Beach, he said.<\/p>\n
Pena, Sibley, Wilson, Joshua Sanchez and Devon Washington rented a car and drove down to the Jersey Shore that day. The four who weren\u2019t driving shared a flask of tequila and a couple of marijuana joints over the course of a few hours, several of them testified. A sudden rainstorm soaked all their belongings and they headed home in their bathing suits, Pena said.<\/p>\n
As they were making their way to Pena’s home, surveillance footage played at trial shows a different scene unfolding at the Midwood smoke shop where Popov worked. That video shows Popov and several other young men or teens standing around a screen, watching what prosecutors said was an Ultimate Fighting Championship match. Around 11 p.m., they walked partway down the block to the Mobil gas station on the corner of Coney Island Avenue and Avenue P.<\/p>\n
While Popov\u2019s group was inside the gas station’s minimart, Sibley\u2019s group pulled into the station to refuel. Security footage shows Sibley, wearing a bathing suit with no shirt, stretching his legs by the pump while Pena, in just a jock strap, moved around the parking lot doing what he called the \u201craisin in potato salad dance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then, several of Sibley\u2019s friends testified that Popov and an unidentified person came out of the market and started shouting homophobic slurs. Sanchez said they were yelling to \u201cget the f— out of here with that gay s—.\u201d Sanchez also testified that one of them said he was Muslim and \u201cwe don\u2019t believe in that s—.\u201d Surveillance footage shows Popov standing on the sidewalk by the door to the market, holding up his phone as if he were recording.<\/p>\n
Pena went back to the car and threw on a pair of shorts, he testified. Sibley walked up to Popov and his friend, holding sunflower seeds in his hands, \u201cto try to be the peacemaker,\u201d Sanchez said. Sanchez followed Sibley to try to get him to leave, because he said his friend was being \u201cnonchalant\u201d while the other group was screaming and being aggressive. Then, Sanchez said, someone called him a slur and told him he sounded like a girl.<\/p>\n
Just because they had different sexual identities didn\u2019t mean they couldn\u2019t coexist in the same place, Sanchez recalled saying.<\/p>\n
\u2018I didn\u2019t want to stay there anymore\u2019<\/p>\n
A gas station clerk testified that he walked outside and told both groups to leave. Surveillance footage shows them going their separate ways, other than Popov, who stayed at the door with his phone raised. Wilson testified that it was unnerving to feel like he was being recorded.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s quite aggressive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
As Popov continued to stand by himself with his phone up, Pena said, he cursed and called them homophobic slurs, prompting Pena and Sibley to walk back toward him. Pena said at first he wanted to know why Popov was continuing to harass them. But then, he said, Popov appeared to get in a \u201cfighting stance,\u201d and Pena decided to leave.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just time to go,\u201d he testified. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to stay there anymore. The night was already ruined.\u201d<\/p>\n
Surveillance footage shows Popov taking a few steps backward, then walking down the sidewalk as Sibley and Washington walked toward him. The footage also appears to show Popov putting his phone in his pocket and taking out a knife.<\/p>\n
At that point, the gas station clerk testified, he was back outside and trying to separate the groups once again. The footage shows Sibley run at Popov, pushing him back. Then, Popov walked toward his friends, and Sibley followed, according to the video. The footage shows Popov hoisting his arm toward Sibley, then darting off with his friends toward the smoke shop. Surveillance footage shows him returning to the smoke shop where he worked, dropping the bloody knife in the cashier\u2019s booth, ringing up a customer and then fleeing in a car with his friends.<\/p>\n
During cross examinations, Popov\u2019s defense attorney cast doubt on his client\u2019s role as an instigator. He questioned whether Popov was the one yelling the slurs and also pressed Sibley\u2019s friends on why they continued to engage and walk toward him. Pollard asked the eyewitnesses whether they could read Popov\u2019s mind and know how he was feeling that night. He suggested \u201cemotions were high\u201d and that the situation escalated quickly.<\/p>\n
Sibley\u2019s friends said Popov was the one who wouldn\u2019t leave them alone and took out a knife when they were all unarmed. After Sibley was stabbed, surveillance footage shows him slowly sitting on the ground, then lying back, stretching out his arms and legs. Blood spilled down his shorts and pooled around him on the sidewalk as Pena squatted beside him, telling him to calm down, according to police body camera footage. Pena testified that he was applying pressure to Sibley\u2019s wound to try to slow the bleeding.<\/p>\n
As the video played, one of Sibley\u2019s supporters in the audience burst into tears and left the courtroom. On the witness stand, Pena wiped his eyes with a tissue.<\/p>\n
Before Pena fully realized what had happened, he said, he remembered his friend \u201cjust giving me this look.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that point I knew that something was wrong,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Around 11 p.m. on July 29, 2023, Robert \u201cOtis\u201d Pena and four of his friends were driving back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-237010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}