The 17-year-old defendant pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder in the context of a hate crime after fatally stabbing a gay man in New York.
On 29 July, O’Shae Sibley and his pals were voguing at a petrol station in Brooklyn when a fight with some teens started.
Before the suspect stabbed Mr. Sibley in the chest, according to the prosecution, the minors allegedly screamed homophobic and racist epithets.
The attacker, charged as an adult, might spend the rest of their lives behind bars.
He was identified as Dmitriy Popov, a final-year student at a nearby secondary school, at his first court appearance on Friday.
His attorney, Mark Pollard, told reporters that “nothing about his past or history shows that he’s the kind of person to commit this crime.”
He implied that his client might claim he acted in self-defense while denying that his client had uttered any insults.
The prosecution wants to show that the suspect’s “targeted” and “senseless” conduct were motivated by prejudice towards Black people and LGBT people.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez stated during a news conference on Thursday, “We’re going to stand up for Mr. Sibley, for the right he had to dance and be exuberant, for the right he had not to stop dancing because it offended someone else.”
Hate crimes affect the victim, but they also affect the community. It deprives not just the family but also the entire community of their sense of security.
A skilled dancer and choreographer named Mr Sibley and his companions were leaving the beach when they stopped at a petrol station in the Midwood neighbourhood of Brooklyn.
They were dancing to songs from Renaissance, a Beyoncé album that is regarded as a love letter to black gay dance culture, while at the petrol station. Voguing is a dance style connected to artistic expression and resistance in LGBT communities.
The two sides of a heated argument can be seen walking away in the surveillance video before Mr. Sibley comes and confronts the 17-year-old with his phone before lunging at him.
The teenager allegedly stabbed Mr. Sibley in plain sight of the cameras, according to the prosecution, who also said they did not think Mr. Sibley’s actions “caused for someone to take a weapon and do what was done in this case.”
In response to a murder, protests and candlelight vigils with voguing have been conducted in New York, Los Angeles, and other cities.
A murder that has touched a nerve within the LGBT community has sparked protests and vigils in New York, Los Angeles, and other cities.
At Mr. Sibley’s funeral, held on Tuesday in a historic opera house in his birthplace of Philadelphia, about 200 people paid their respects.
Otis Pena, a close friend who was at the petrol station, said of O’Shae, “He had the power to touch everyone’s heart, whoever met him.” For many of us in our community, O’Shae was a guiding light.
Others praised Mr. Sibley’s career in dance, which began when he was three years old and included teaching at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and performing with the Philadelphia Dance Company.
The dancing group declared that it has created a scholarship in his honour “to inspire other students to follow their dreams, like he did.”