O’Shae Sibley, 28, was stabbed in the back at a Brooklyn gas station on Saturday night after voguing to a Beyoncé song. Police are looking into the event to see if it was prejudiced.
Stirred Outrage and Drawn Attention from Beyoncé
O’Shae Sibley, a gay dancer, was fatally stabbed after voguing to Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” album at a gas station in Brooklyn late on a Saturday night. Since his death, which has stirred outrage and drawn attention from Beyoncé, authorities are looking into whether the attack was motivated by bias, reports PEOPLE.
In a sad phone conversation to his aunt, Tondra, 49, who assisted in raising O’Shae with his mother in Philadelphia, said she remembered a tiny child who was dancing and a young man who, at 28, still found the time to call virtually every day. Around the time of the epidemic, he relocated to Brooklyn to pursue his dream and his passion for dance.
O’Shae suffered a torso stabbing just before 11:15 p.m. Police said it happened on Saturday on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn. At Maimonides Medical Center, he was declared deceased. The NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force looks into any possibly prejudiced incidents. There have not yet been any arrests.
Otis Pea remembered Sibley’s dying moments, as he faded in Pea’s arms, in a roughly 15-minute video he filmed in his bedroom and uploaded to Facebook hours after his best friend’s death. Pea claimed that his gay friend was killed due of this.
Openly homosexual senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal tweeted on Monday that he was “heartbroken and enraged” about O’Shae’s passing. In spite of homophobes’ best efforts, he said, homosexual joy is not illegal. Those motivated by hatred.
Pea said in the Facebook video that the friends had been celebrating Pea’s birthday and were two blocks from Pea’s home when they decided to stop for gas. Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” album was playing as they pumped gas. Pea called Sibley “my brother” and described him as “the salt to my pepper, the peanutbutter to my jelly.”
Sibley is “loved and embraced”
O’Shae, one of 11 children, grew raised in Philadelphia with his mother and aunt. Sibley came out as gay “early on,” according to his aunt, and was immediately “loved and embraced” by family members who also supported his dance career by attending his earliest recitals as a child.
According to Tondra, his aunt Karen Pendergrass’ inner-city dance program in Philadelphia was when Tondra first became interested in dancing as a possible vocation. As a young adolescent, she claimed, he enrolled in ballet. For his recitals, his family would show up in droves to “cheer him on, glasses on, dancin’ and just cheesin’.”
Beyoncé’s official website opens with the words “REST IN POWER O’SHAE SIBLEY” in white letters on a black background as a respect to Sibley. Tondra referred to the homage as “overwhelming” and expressed her gratitude to Beyoncé for “taking that time to acknowledge my baby”, reports in PEOPLE.
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