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Few of the people who arrived for the vigil outside a Brooklyn gas station on Friday seemed to notice the blood stains on the pavement, which had darkened in the six days since the proudly gay and prodigiously talented dancer O’Shae Sibley was fatally stabbed there.
Sibley died in what police are investigating as a possible bias attack on a street that has seen more than a few of them. But most of the earlier hate crime victims on Coney Island Avenue were Muslims targeted for abuse in the days after 9/11. The atmosphere of hate caused thousands of Muslims to flee what had come to be called Little Pakistan.
At least two witnesses to Sibley’s killing on Saturday night heard the 17-year-old prime suspect say he is Muslim. The suspect—who has since turned himself in to police—is said to have objected on religious grounds when Sibley and several friends jumped out and began vogueing to a tune from Beyonce’s Renaissance album while they fueled their car. The Black, joyously gay men were shirtless, having spent the day at a New Jersey beach.