The deadly stabbing of a Black, gay man who was dancing to Beyoncé at a Midwood gas station in 2023 was not justified, a Brooklyn jury decided Monday.
Jurors convicted Dmitriy Popov, 20, of first-degree manslaughter as a hate crime, but acquitted him of a more serious murder charge, in the killing of 28-year-old O’Shae Sibley. Popov was 17 at the time but was tried as an adult.
The jury also convicted Popov of menacing, aggravated harassment and criminal possession of a weapon. He faces up to 25 years in prison at his sentencing later this month.
Popov’s defense attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On July 29, 2023, Popov fatally stabbed Sibley following a verbal back-and-forth. Sibley and several friends, who were all Black and gay, were getting gas on Coney Island Avenue in Midwood after a trip to the beach, while Popov, who worked at a smoke shop nearby, was getting food inside the mini mart with a few of his friends.
As Sibley and his friends danced and stretched their legs in their bathing suits, Popov’s group shouted slurs and told them to leave, according to testimony at trial. Surveillance footage of the encounter also shows Popov recording on his cellphone.
The Brooklyn district attorney’s office said at trial that Popov spewed racist and homophobic slurs at Sibley and his friends before pulling out a knife and piercing Sibley in the heart.
“There is no question that hate showed up that night at that gas station,” Senior Assistant DA Sarah Jafari said in her closing statement Monday. “It is because of that hate that O’Shae Sibley was killed.”
Jafari said Popov had multiple opportunities to walk away, but he kept escalating the situation because he felt emboldened by the knife in his pocket.
“He brought a knife to a verbal altercation that he provoked, and the law does not allow that,” she said.
Popov’s attorney, Mark Pollard, denied that the stabbing was motivated by racism or homophobia. He said other teens at the gas station were using slurs, not Popov.
The defense attorney argued in his closing statement that the stabbing was an act of self defense and asked jurors to focus on the final moments of the encounter, when he said Popov was walking backward and Sibley was walking toward him.
Pollard also asked jurors to think about Popov’s perception at the time, as a teenager whose brain was not fully developed.
“All he perceived — and reasonably perceived, I might add, is that he was in big danger and trouble,” Pollard said.
Over the last three weeks, a series of eyewitnesses have testified about what happened that night as surveillance footage of the incident played on screens around the courtroom. Sibley’s friends described a joyful birthday celebration at the beach that was “ruined” when Popov and his friends started shouting homophobic slurs.
“I felt like I shouldn’t be there,” testified Philip Wilson, one of Sibley’s friends who was there that night. “I felt like my life didn’t matter.”
Popov also took the stand to share his version of what happened. He said others used slurs — not him — and that he was recording on his phone because he thought the dancing was funny. When asked why he was carrying a weapon, he said he had been jumped a few weeks earlier and started carrying a knife from his kitchen.
“My intention was never to use it,” he said. “I just wanted to show it.”
As Sibley and his friends walked toward Popov, he said, he took out the knife because he “felt like I was getting surrounded.”
“I was scared I was going to get hurt,” he testified.
Ben Feuerherd contributed reporting.
