Dmitriy Popov did not want to use the knife, he testified in a Brooklyn courtroom Wednesday.
He said he had started to carry a “small kitchen knife” in his pocket after he was jumped while walking home from his job at a Midwood smoke shop. He recalled waking up from unconsciousness with bruises on his face and his body, too afraid to call the police or tell his mom. If anyone tried to hurt him again, he said, he had planned to take out the knife “just to show somebody.”
“My intention was never to use it,” Popov testified.
But on July 29, 2023, Popov stabbed O’Shae Sibley in the torso, puncturing his heart and killing him, prosecutors alleged as they made their case in a trial that began May 11. The 20-year-old has pleaded not guilty to murder as a hate crime and other charges. He was 17 at the time but is being tried as an adult.
Prosecutors have accused Popov of killing Sibley because he was Black and gay. Sibley and several friends, all queer men of color, had been dancing in their bathing suits at a Midwood gas station when Popov and his friends confronted the group and told them to leave, according to surveillance footage and testimony at trial.
Prosecutors said Popov shouted a homophobic slur before stabbing Sibley, and that eyewitnesses also heard him yell a racial slur. On the stand, Popov denied using any slurs or harboring any hatred toward Sibley. He said he pulled out the knife because he was scared, and that he used it after Sibley punched him.
“Everything was happening so fast,” he said.
Sibley was a professional dancer who moved to New York City several years earlier for better opportunities, his mother testified at trial. Fellow members of New York City’s ballroom community mourned his death with chants and dancing, some expressing shock and fear at what they believed to be a targeted crime. The year Sibley was killed marked the highest year for hate crimes against gay men and Black people since at least 2019, according to NYPD data.
Over the course of Popov’s trial, the prosecution and the defense have unspooled conflicting narratives about an incident that was captured on camera from multiple angles, but with no sound to confirm exactly what was said. Those contradictions came to a head when Popov took the stand Wednesday.
To convict Popov of a hate crime, the district attorney’s office will need to convince a jury that he used force against Sibley at least in part because of his race or sexual orientation. But on the witness stand, Popov repeatedly denied using any slurs.
Popov spoke quietly, at times mumbling or nearly whispering. He wore a white, button-down shirt and dark pants. His mother sat quietly in the audience, at times twiddling her thumbs.
As Popov’s defense attorney, Mark Pollard, questioned his client, he focused on how Popov was feeling that night. He asked whether the defendant felt outnumbered or frightened, to which Popov answered, “yes.”
The situation started out “funny,” with one of Sibley’s friends “dancing with his butt out,” wearing just a jock strap, Popov testified. He said he decided to record on his phone, because he often recorded things that were happening around him when he was a teen.
But Popov said the situation escalated after someone he was with that night started yelling and using a homophobic slur. The two groups shouted back and forth, he said, and he stayed near the door to the gas station’s minimart, still recording.
Popov said the situation started to feel dangerous when Sibley and two of his friends walked toward him. He said he took the knife out of his pocket and stepped backward to retreat.
“I was very anxious about what was going to happen, because when I was telling them to back off, they wasn’t scared of the knife. So I didn’t know if they had anything on them,” Popov testified. “I was scared that I was going to get hurt.”
After he took out the knife, he said, Sibley ran at him and punched him in the head. Popov said he stabbed Sibley after that.
But during cross examination, Senior Assistant DA Sarah Jafari repeatedly cast doubt on Popov’s version of events. She showed a portion of the video that she said appeared to show him mouthing words that started with the letter F, suggesting that he used a homophobic slur. She asked him whether other witnesses lied when they said they testified that they heard Popov use a racial slur.
“You’re the only one telling the truth?” Jafari asked.
“Yes,” Popov responded.
Jafari questioned why Popov didn’t leave when his friends did. She asked whether he only decided to stay because he had a knife in his pocket. The prosecutor also zeroed in on the size of the weapon, questioning how a knife he described as small, taken from a drawer in his kitchen, could have left a 5.5-inch wound in Sibley’s body.
During cross examination, Popov denied that he escalated the situation in the moments before he stabbed Sibley.
“At that moment I didn’t think I was escalating,” he said. “I thought it was just back-and-forth statements.”
One piece of evidence that could have clarified what Popov and others said that night was the video he recorded on his phone. Jafari asked Popov where the recording was.
“I’m not sure,” he said.
“Where’s your phone?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” he said again. Then he told the prosecutor that he threw it out.
“So you did get rid of the evidence, didn’t you?” Jafari asked.
“Correct,” Popov replied.
This story has been updated with additional information.
