stabbing death of a dancer<\/a> who was vogueing at a Brooklyn gas station, according to court records and his attorney.<\/p>\nDmitriy Popov, 17, is being charged as an adult in the killing of O\u2019Shae Sibley, his attorney and prosecutors said. A grand jury indicted Popov Thursday for murder in the second degree as a hate crime, manslaughter in the first degree as a hate crime, weapons possession and other charges.<\/p>\n
Defense attorney Mark Henry Pollard said his client is not guilty, is remorseful and might claim self-defense. His next court date is October 10.<\/p>\n
The family of the suspect \u2013 his mother and grandmother \u2013 were in court and declined comment to CNN. The teen gave them a thumbs up as he exited the courtroom.<\/p>\n
Pollard said there is nothing in his client\u2019s past that shows he is the type of person to commit such a crime.<\/p>\n
\u201cI strongly suspect that we will be going self-defense, and that he had a reasonable grounds to reasonably\u2026 believe that he had to defend himself in this situation,\u201d Pollard said.<\/p>\n
Death was \u2018tragic and senseless,\u2019 DA says<\/p>\n
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez on Thursday called Sibley\u2019s death \u201ctragic and senseless.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cO\u2019Shae and his friends were allegedly targeted, because they were dancing, they were being themselves, dancing joyfully to Beyonc\u00e9 music at a Brooklyn gas station, harming no one, and refusing to stop even when confronted with anti-Black and homophobic slurs demanding that they stop dancing,\u201d Gonzalez said.<\/p>\n
Sibley, 28, was approached on July 29 by a group of men who allegedly began shouting homophobic slurs. An altercation broke out and Sibley was stabbed in the chest. He was transported to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe entire community has been victimized by this senseless victimization of Mr. Sibley. This crime, while clearly impacting his family and loved ones, have impacted the entirety of Brooklyn, and the entirety of the city and I dare say the entire nation,\u201d Gonzalez said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe allegations made against this 17-year-old are of tremendous import to this city and to this country and I\u2019m assuring the community that we are taking this case very seriously and we\u2019re going to make sure that justice prevails in this case.\u201d <\/p>\n
Many witnesses have come forward, according to the DA. \u201cWe believe that there were two groups confronting each other and the group that Mr. Sibley was in was the people who were being assailed with anti-gay and anti-Black statements,\u201d Gonzalez said.<\/p>\n
The DA refused to answer if any more people would be charged over the incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cO\u2019Shae came to New York to follow his dream, like many New Yorkers,\u201d Gonzalez said. \u201cHe came here, he was a choreographer, he was a dancer, he was here to shine a light on himself and really shine a light on this community and New York City and his light was shut off, he was killed, for senseless reasons that I think have to be addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Obviously he\u2019s sorrowful,\u2019 defense attorney says <\/p>\n
Regarding his client\u2019s mental state, Pollard said, \u201cObviously he\u2019s sorrowful, he\u2019s sad, he\u2019s afraid as he should be at 17 years old, but he\u2026 has faith and he prays and he has great family support and he\u2019s hanging in there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe regrets what happened, certainly does, but that doesn\u2019t mean he\u2019s guilty of a crime \u2013 those are two different things,\u201d Pollard said.<\/p>\n
Popov lives with his mother, has maintained two gig jobs and is going to be a high school senior, according to Pollard.<\/p>\n
Pollard said Popov also has many Black friends and a Black sister-in-law.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just don\u2019t see an anti-Black thing going on here,\u201d Pollard said.<\/p>\n
Pollard said, to his understanding, his client did not utter any slurs.<\/p>\n
Popov is being held at a juvenile facility in Brooklyn, his attorney said.<\/p>\n
Before the brief arraignment wrapped up Friday, Judge Craig Walker said to Popov that while he\u2019s in the facility, \u201cI\u2019m expecting you to take advantage of whatever programs they have there for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judge added, \u201cMost importantly stay out of trouble. It\u2019s surprisingly easy to get in trouble at the facility and you don\u2019t need anything else going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
The-CNN-Wire
\u2122 & \u00a9 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Sabrina Souza, Kristina Sgueglia, CNN (CNN) \u2014 Editor\u2019s note (6\/15\/26): Since this story was published, Popov was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-267958","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\/267958","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=267958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}