O’Shae Sibley, 28, was vogueing when men attacked him with gay slurs and told him to stop. A hate crimes task force is investigating.
O’Shae Sibley was at a Brooklyn gas station with friends late Saturday night, filling up a car and blasting music by Beyoncé when a group of men approached and told them to stop dancing, according to friends.
The men began using slurs, and Mr. Sibley, 28, a gay man who was a professional dancer and choreographer, confronted them, according to his friends and a video of the altercation. The argument escalated, and one man stabbed Mr. Sibley, according to the police. Otis Pena, one of Mr. Sibley’s best friends, pressed on his wound to stop the bleeding before Mr. Sibley was taken to Maimonides Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
“They murdered him because he’s gay, because he stood up for his friends,” Mr. Pena said in a Facebook video that he posted hours after the killing. “His name was O’Shae and you all killed him. You all murdered him right in front of me.”
No arrests had been made, but the police said that the hate crimes unit was involved in the investigation. The police said Tuesday that they were seeking a young man in his late teens in connection with the killing, which took place on Coney Island Avenue in Midwood.
The killing has devastated Mr. Sibley’s family — he is one of 11 siblings — and unnerved the city’s gay community. While the motive remains under investigation, the attack was a reminder of the biases that L.G.B.T.Q. people face.
The Anti-Defamation League and the advocacy group GLAAD issued a report in June indicating an increase in harassment and violence against gay and transgender people, including online bullying, gatherings of armed protesters outside drag shows and bomb threats against hospitals that provide gender transition care. In the first three weeks of June there were 101 such incidents, more than twice the number during the same time period the year before.
Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a gay state senator in New York, said he was “heartbroken and enraged” over Mr. Sibley’s killing.
“Gay joy is not crime,” he said on Twitter. “Hate-fueled attacks are.”
Mr. Sibley had moved from Philadelphia before the pandemic, hoping New York would provide more auditions and opportunities, said an aunt, Tondra Sibley, 49.
“It was a senseless crime,” she said. “O’Shae has always been a peacemaker. All he wanted to do was dance.”
She recalled him as a small boy, “gyrating and jerking” to Missy Elliott. When he got older, he honed his skills at the Philadelphia Dance Company and, on the advice of instructors, began ballet, taking advantage of his long, athletic frame.
Kemar Jewel, a 31-year-old choreographer and director, met Mr. Sibley in Philadelphia 13 years ago at the Attic Youth Center, where gay teenagers could go for after-school programs and activities. They were only a few years apart, but Mr. Sibley saw him as a mentor. “He was like, ‘You’re my uncle. I’m going to call you uncle,’” Mr. Jewel said.
Goofy and fun-loving, Mr. Sibley was serious about his craft. He would hunker down at Mr. Jewel’s apartment until 3 a.m. to study dance videos, from vogueing to the modern techniques introduced by Martha Graham and Lester Horton, American dancers and choreographers born around the turn of the 20th century.
“O’Shae was so well versed. He was great at tap, ballet, hip-hop,” Mr. Jewel said. “He was an incredible visual learner. I’ve seen him watch someone do something twice and then just do it.”
Mr. Jewel, who is in London working on a show, said he was sleeping on Sunday morning when Mr. Pena called to tell him what had happened.
At the gas station, Mr. Sibley and his friends had been playing “Renaissance” by Beyoncé and vogueing, a style of dance that began as an imitation of fashion models in the 1980s and has evolved as an expression of pride and protest.
That is when the group of men approached, calling them names, Mr. Jewel said, recalling the account of Mr. Pena, who could not be reached for comment.
Both Mr. Sibley and Mr. Pena told them, “Stop saying that. There is nothing wrong with being gay.”
Mr. Sibley fought with them, and he was stabbed as Mr. Pena ran to intervene, Mr. Jewel said.
At the Brownsville building where Mr. Sibley lived alone in a studio, his neighbor, Beckenbaur Hamilton, 51, said he had warned the younger man against being so open about his sexuality. Mr. Hamilton, who is also gay, recalled attacks he had suffered in his 20s when going out to clubs, and said that he has recently been overhearing comments on the street about “all these rights” gay people have.
“O’Shae wasn’t afraid of being who he was,” Mr. Hamilton said. “He would defend his friends.”
They loved dancing outside and delighted in drawing a crowd. “But I’d see how people looked at them,” Mr. Hamilton said. “There was a worry in the back of my mind.”
In his video, Mr. Pena described Mr. Sibley as his brother and said the two were “always out and loud.”
“We as a community don’t deserve this,” Mr. Pena said. “We may be gay, but we exist. We’re not going to live in fear. We’re not going to live hiding.”
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