On Friday, 17-year-old Dmitriy Popov was arrested in connection to the killing and now faces charges of murder as a hate crime and criminal possession of a weapon after he turned himself in to police through his lawyers. This was after he tried to evade law enforcement for a week by shaving his head and turning off his phone.

Popov’s defense attorney, Mark Pollard, talked to PIX11 and explained that his client isn’t Muslim and is in fact Christian.

The statement may be an attempt to cast doubt on investigators as court papers say that Popov said: “Stop dancing here. We are Muslim. Get that gay s**t out of here.”

I think it speaks for itself.