Teen accused of hate crime in fatally stabbing black dancer claimed to be Muslim during attack, though family says he’s Christian
The teen accused of fatally stabbing a gay black man during a standoff at a Brooklyn gas station claimed to be Muslim, though his family says he’s Christian.
A conflicting portrait of Dmitriy Popov emerged Monday as the 17-year-old, who surrendered Friday with his lawyer, was arraigned as an adult defendant on murder charges and ordered held without bail.
The Midwood teen tried to go on the lam for a week after the killing by shaving his head and shutting off his phone in a failed attempt to evade the law, Assistant District Attorney Sarah Jafari said in court.
The suspect’s mother called him a “good boy” who goes to church and has two jobs.
Popov stabbed O’Shae Sibley the night of July 29 after hurling homophobic slurs and anti-Black epithets at his alleged victim. Then Popov plunged the knife deep into Sibley’s side, piercing his heart, police said.
“Stop dancing here,” Popov said, according to court papers. “We are Muslim. Get that gay s—t out of here.”
Popov’s grandmother countered that narrative, noting the teen is actually Christian, wears a cross and loves the Black woman married to his older brother.
But police said that during the confrontation captured on surveillance video, Popov stabbed Sibley after a minutes-long standoff at the Mobil station on Coney Island Ave. near Ave. P in Midwood.
Sibley and his friends returning from a trip to the Jersey Shore pulled over to get gas. They spent the next few minutes blaring Beyoncé songs and voguing — making exaggerated poses — near the gas pumps
Popov and his friends, who were inside the station convenience store, stepped out to object, claiming the dancing offended their faith.
The teens “demanded that they stop dancing,” NYPD Chief Joseph Kenny said Saturday. “You can see on video that the heated dispute quickly turned physical.
“There were a lot of anti-gay statements and derogatory anti-Black statements,” Kenny said. “There were a lot of people from the community acting like peacemakers.”
The dispute ended with Sibley getting stabbed after he followed Popov, who used his phone to record Sibley and his friends.
“The defendant,” the assistant district attorney said in court, “pulled out a knife and stabbed the victim in the chest and punctured his heart causing his death a short while later.”
Popov had a full head of hair in the video, but the prosecutor noted to the judge that the teen “stands before you with a shaved head.”
Popov’s lawyer, Mark Pollard, argued in vain that the case be tried in Family Court and asked that bail be set but Judge Craig Walker said given Popov’s week on the lam there’s a good chance he’d try to flee.
“It’s all about choices,” Walker said, “and the choices that were made that night which have us over here in this particular moment.”
Pollard outside court called the murder “a tragedy all around” and the suspect’s mother, who identified herself only as Lana, read tearfully from a statement.
“My heart goes out to the family of Mr. Sibley,” she said. “I know they are in pain as we are as well. My son is a good boy. He was working at two jobs and goes to church and school.
“He is not that what’s being said about him.”
