What to Know
- The 17-year-old high school student arrested in the deadly stabbing of a man at a Brooklyn gas station during an altercation between two groups in July pleaded not guilty to a hate-motivated murder charge, prosecutors said.
- Dmitriy Popov was taken into custody in connection with the killing of the 28-year-old O'Shae Sibley, who was gay. Authorities declined to release the defendant's name.
- The district attorney went on to explain that the killing will be prosecuted as a homicide and hate crime.
The 17-year-old high school student arrested in the deadly stabbing of a man at a Brooklyn gas station during an altercation between two groups in July pleaded not guilty to a hate-motivated murder charge, prosecutors said.
Dmitriy Popov entered the plea during his Friday morning arraignment on charges of second-degree murder as a hate crime, murder and weapon possession. The teen stands accused of killing 28-year-old professional dancer O'Shae Sibley, an openly gay Black man, on July 29.
Popov’s defense attorney fought back allegations that his client is racist and yelled anti-Black statements to Sibley and his friends on the night of the deadly confrontation.
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"Dmitriy is a 17-year-old boy — juvenile, Christian boy who has gone to church for a very long time," said defense attorney Mark Henry Pollard. "He has many Black friends and he even has a black sister in law."
Pollard said he anticipates the case will go to trial, and he's preparing to make the case that Popov acted in self-defense when he stabbed and killed Sibley.
"I strongly suspect we will be going self defense, that he had reasonable grounds, that he had to defend himself in this situation," the attorney said. "He’s sorrowful, he’s sad, he’s afraid — as he should be at 17-years-old."
Inside the courtroom, Popov, sporting a shaved head, turned around to look at his family and gave a thumbs-up. When asked by the judge, Popov said he was doing "alright."
The defense attorney wouldn’t say why his client shaved his head, or whether or not he was trying to evade police before he turned himself in. The teen faces a minimum of 20 years in prison on the murder in the second degree as a hate crime charge alone, and could face up to 25 years to life behind bars.
Popov's mother and grandmother had no comment as they left the Brooklyn courthouse Friday morning.
Popov, who was arrested Monday and had been denied bail, is next scheduled to appear in court in October. In the meantime, he will not be returning to his high school in the fall — instead, he will be in custody at the Crossroads Juvenile Detention Center in Brooklyn, where the judge advised him to take advantage of the classes and programs offered there.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez has called the death of Sibley "both tragic and senseless," and that anti-LGBTQ+ laws enacted around the country has led to an increase in hate rhetoric against the LGBTQ+ community.
"We will never tolerate acts of hate crimes or any intolerance. That's directed at any particular groups. And in this particular case, I believe that the hate crimes that are allegedly a statement show both an anti black bias and an anti LGBTQ bias," Gonzalez said.
“Parents lost a child, a child, to something that was clearly a hate crime,” Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain, previously said.
The stabbing occurred after the two groups got into a confrontation at one of the gas pumps, where Sibley was dancing with his friends to a Beyoncé song. Authorities said Sibley’s group was being taunted by the other group before the confrontation ended in violence.
Beyoncé would later pay tribute to Sibley on her website.
Security camera video showed the two groups arguing for a few minutes. Both sides had walked away when Sibley and a friend abruptly returned and again confronted one of the young men, who had stayed behind recording on his phone.
In the video, Sibley could be seen following the teen and then lunging at him before the two disappeared out of the camera’s view. A moment later, he walks backward into view, checking his side, and then collapses to the sidewalk.
He was stabbed once in the left rib cage, according to Assistant Police Chief Joe Kenny, who said the video showed "a heated verbal dispute quickly turns physical."
“As they waited to refuel their vehicle, Mr. Sibley and his group began dancing to music that was being played in their car. At this point, a male called out to Mr. Sibley and his group demanding that they stop dancing,” Kenny said. “As the group began to yell at Mr. Sibley and his friends, they began to call him derogatory names and use homophobic slurs against him.”
The initial encounter lasted about four minutes, police said, when Sibley and four other men stopped to refuel while traveling home to New York City from New Jersey.
Authorities said Popov arranged for his surrender through his attorney.
Sibley performed with the dance company Philadanco in his native Philadelphia and in New York, where he took classes with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Ailey Extension program.
