Djbril Sy, 23, was a Black man living in Memphis, Tennessee. On Friday, August 3, 2018, what should have been an ordinary meetup turned into a trap: reports described him agreeing to meet in the 3700 block of Outland Road to buy a phone, only to be confronted when he arrived.
According to the account published days later, two men and a young woman tried to rob him at the meeting spot.
Gunfire erupted, and Sy was hit multiple times—described as at least two shots, and ultimately “multiple” gunshot wounds. Even after being wounded, he was still able to speak with police long enough to describe who attacked him, giving investigators a crucial thread to pull at in the first chaotic moments after the shooting.
Police used Sy’s description along with an eyewitness account to identify suspects, and arrests followed quickly. Erik Robinson and Marquavious Smith were named as the two male suspects, and the young woman involved was also taken into custody; the same reporting said all three turned themselves in and admitted their roles in what authorities framed as an attempted robbery that ended in murder.
The timeline around Sy’s final hours appears in records in slightly different ways: the violence is dated to August 3, 2018, while his death is also recorded as August 4, 2018, in a published notice. Either way, the result was the same—an encounter set up around a phone sale that ended with a life cut short and an investigation that rapidly narrowed from a silent crime scene to identified, arrested suspects.
