Under New York State law<\/a>, people cannot claim self-defense if they started a confrontation and did not walk away if given the chance.<\/p>\nDuring deliberations, jurors seemed to struggle to understand the laws behind the charges, specifically the murder charges, and asked Judge Dena Douglas three times to read them aloud in court. It was a lengthy process as Judge Douglas frequently stopped to read the law again, appearing to correct herself. Jurors declined to comment after the verdict.<\/p>\n
During cross-examination, Mr. Popov admitted that he had never seen any weapons on Mr. Sibley or his friends. He also said he had thrown away the phone he had been using to record his interactions with Mr. Sibley and his friends just before the stabbing.<\/p>\n
Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney, noted that the verdict came at the beginning of Pride month and said he hoped it would give Mr. Sibley\u2019s friends \u201csome measure of solace\u201d to know Mr. Popov would be held accountable.<\/p>\n
Mr. Sibley\u2019s life \u201cwas cut short when he was killed by this defendant, who couldn\u2019t stand the sight of O\u2019Shae and his friends just being themselves and living their lives openly as Black gay men,\u201d Mr. Gonzalez said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Mr. Sanchez said he had not been the same since Mr. Sibley\u2019s death, constantly worrying that he could be attacked because he is gay.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m always looking behind my shoulder,\u201d he said. \u201cBefore, that wasn\u2019t a thought in my mind, especially living in New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n
The day of the killing, Mr. Sibley and his friends had been at a beach in New Jersey and stopped for gas on their way back home.<\/p>\n
Surveillance footage showed Mr. Sibley, bare-chested and in pink swim trunks, leaning against a column at the gas station, eating sunflower seeds and, at one point, raising one leg gracefully as Beyonc\u00e9 played from the car. His friend, Otis Pena, shimmied up and down the parking lot, laughing.<\/p>\n
In that moment, \u201cwe were still happy,\u201d testified Philip Wilson, 38, a friend of Mr. Sibley\u2019s who had been driving the rental car that night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were living our best lives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr. Popov and his friends then emerged from the gas station, recording them and telling them to leave, mocking their painted nails and calling them gay slurs. One of the teenagers said he was Muslim and was offended by them.<\/p>\n
The footage shows Mr. Sibley calmly walking up to the group, still holding his sunflower seeds as he talked to them.<\/p>\n
Mr. Popov\u2019s friends eventually left, still yelling, and Mr. Sibley and his friends also turned away. But Mr. Popov remained, still filming and calling out at them. When Mr. Sibley and some of his friends walked back, Mr. Popov pulled out his knife and held it toward one of Mr. Sibley\u2019s friends.<\/p>\n
Mr. Sibley ran toward Mr. Popov, who rammed the knife into his chest and then fled, according to the video. Mr. Sibley fell to the ground, his pink swim trunks covered in blood, before his friends and nearby witnesses ran to help him.<\/p>\n
The police and emergency technicians soon arrived. One officer\u2019s body camera captured the sound of someone trying to comfort Mr. Sibley.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s OK, my man,\u201d the person said. \u201cYou\u2019re going to be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wesley Parnell contributed research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who fatally stabbed a gay, Black dancer at a Brooklyn gas station in July 2023 was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[101105,98,100,99,17075,16471,101104,96033,9,24,63,101106,101103,4722,101082],"class_list":["post-259963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-2023-murder","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-decisions-and-verdicts","tag-discrimination","tag-dmitriy-july-29","tag-homosexuality-and-bisexuality","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-oshae-d-2023","tag-popov","tag-race-and-ethnicity","tag-sibley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259963","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=259963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}