Dancer O’Shae Sibley Killed After Vogueing at Brooklyn Gas Station

New York’s creative neighborhood is mourning the loss of life of dancer O’Shae Sibley, who was stabbed outdoors of a gasoline station in Midwood, Brooklyn on Saturday evening. Police responded to a 911 name round 11:15pm on July 29. Sibley, a 28-year-old Black homosexual man, was taken to Maimonides Medical Heart, the place he was pronounced useless. The New York Police Division advised Hyperallergic that it’s investigating the loss of life as a “potential biased incident.”

Sibley and 4 buddies had been dancing and vogueing (a type of dance born out of Harlem’s queer ballroom scene within the Eighties and characterised by catwalk-style poses and exaggerated arm gestures) to the music of Beyoncé close to the gasoline pumps of the Coney Island Avenue and Avenue P Mobil Station. A buyer exited the shop and confronted the dancing group of buddies earlier than being joined by a number of different males leaving the shop. Gasoline station store employee Summy Ullah advised Gothamist that the frightening group stated the dancing offended them as Muslims.

The crime was caught on safety footage. After a verbal altercation, Sibley and his buddies started strolling again to their automotive when one of many males within the attacking group began filming. Sibley and his buddies made their approach again towards the boys outdoors the storefront and the 2 teams walked across the nook of the constructing, the place one of many males stabbed Sibley within the torso. Sibley collapsed on the sidewalk outdoors of the gasoline station.

Ullah stated he acknowledged the attackers as a smoke store employee and his buddies, who incessantly used the gasoline station store’s toilet. Police are reportedly looking for a 17-year-old suspect. No arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing.

Sibley’s buddy Otis Pena, who was with him on the gasoline station, posted a Facebook Live video on Sunday, July 30. He stated the group of buddies had gone to the seaside to have fun his birthday and stopped on the gasoline station on the best way again to his house two blocks away. He acknowledged that the attackers had launched homophobic slurs and that Sibley had responded with, “Yeah, we’re homosexual, however we’re simply celebrating my brother’s birthday.”

“They murdered him as a result of he was homosexual, as a result of he stood up for his buddies,” Pena says within the video, his eyes pink as he fights again tears. “And so they stabbed him, proper within the coronary heart. They took the one factor I all the time fought for. They killed my brother proper in entrance of me. I’m coated in his blood.” He describes holding Sibley and placing his hand on the stab wound.

Sibley moved from Philadelphia to New York Metropolis in 2019 and lived in Brownsville, Brooklyn. He was a member of the distinguished Philadelphia dance troupe Philadanco and carried out in artist Jacolby Satterwhite’s “An Eclectic Dance to the Music of Time” (2022) at Manhattan’s Lincoln Heart final 12 months, a commissioned video work that comes with archival footage, fashionable dance, and digital illustration to discover the historical past of the New York Philharmonic.

“The shoot with O’Shae and different queer black performers blew my thoughts,” Satterwhite stated in a press release he shared with Hyperallergic and posted to his Instagram account in the present day, August 1. “As a result of they fused classical, fashionable, and voguing dance types, exuding confidence and proof of social progress, and a want for a world stage they really deserved. Their artistry transcended mere survival and coping, breaking free from the struggles of queer generations earlier than them.” 

Sibley was additionally featured in artist Kemar Jewel’s 2021 video “SOFT: A Love Letter to Black Queer Men” and was an energetic member of dance studios across the metropolis.

“Anybody who ever met O’Shae was very blessed to know him,” Jewel, who met Sibley in Philadelphia and regarded him a nephew, wrote on Instagram. “He was humorous, distinctive, charismatic and all the time knew learn how to have a very good time. Most significantly, he cherished HARD!!! He went above and past for his family members and made certain nobody was ever unhappy round him.”

Hate crimes in america have been on the rise since 2014, and in 2021, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) reported the very best quantity because it started accumulating knowledge within the Nineties. Underreporting and variations in state policing legal guidelines imply the true numbers are doubtless a lot higher, however the FBI’s knowledge can nonetheless illuminate alarming traits. Hate crimes towards Black folks constituted the very best proportion general at a bit of over 31%; anti-Asian assaults rose by 167%; assaults towards homosexual males rose by 41%; and hate crimes towards LGBTQ+ folks normally rose by 70% from 2020 to 2021.

The incident comes amid a wave of laws focusing on the LGBTQ+ neighborhood and drag performances throughout the nation. In keeping with a 2022 report by the Williams Institute on the UCLA College of Legislation, LGBTQ+ persons are 9 occasions extra prone to be victims of violent hate crimes.