Investigators say a victim’s hospital interview led them toward two suspects and a separate search involving a reported stolen BMW.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Memphis investigators say they moved quickly from a wounded man’s hospital account to identifying two suspects in an alleged robbery, then located one of them after a search that involved a black BMW, an attempted traffic stop and a camera alert.
The investigative trail described in police records led to the arrests of Bailey Jobin, 23, and Joseph Polk, 20, following an alleged Sept. 23 attack near Pope Street and Omar Robinson Street. The victim told police he had been taken to the property, confronted over money tied to a vehicle, forced to remove his clothes, shot through his right thigh, beaten and robbed of his cellphone. WMC reported that both defendants were charged with especially aggravated robbery. Law&Crime, citing Shelby County court records, described the shared charge as aggravated robbery. Polk faced additional firearm, vehicle-theft and driving-related allegations.
Police first obtained a detailed account from the victim after he reached a hospital. WMC reported that investigators went to Baptist East Hospital, interviewed him and asked him to identify the people he believed were involved. That interview appears to have given detectives names and descriptions that could be checked against other information. Among those identified was a man the victim knew as “Jay Pointer,” whom investigators later identified as Polk. The reporting does not say whether the identification procedure involved photographs, an in-person lineup or another method, so the precise process should not be assumed.
Investigators then developed Polk as the person they believed fired the shot, according to WMC. Police began trying to locate him the same day. Officers with a Memphis police task force encountered a black 2013 BMW matching a previous stolen-vehicle report in a parking lot on Jackson Avenue, the station reported. When police tried to make a traffic stop using emergency lights and sirens, the driver allegedly continued along Chelsea Avenue. WMC said that episode later resulted in an evading-arrest allegation against Polk. The local report did not describe a collision, police pursuit injuries or gunfire during the attempted stop.
The BMW surfaced again through a camera system, according to the police account cited by WMC. A Flock camera showed the vehicle in the area of Watkins Street and Jackson Avenue. When officers arrived, they found it parked and unoccupied. Investigators said the same man they believed had been driving was standing near the car. Officers approached him, conducted a frisk and identified him as Polk, WMC reported. The station did not report that police recovered the gun allegedly used in the Pope Street shooting from Polk or from the BMW, and the available accounts do not say whether the victim’s cellphone was found.
Polk was taken to 170 N. Main St. for questioning, according to WMC. Police did not obtain a substantive interview from him at that time. The station reported that he told investigators he was heavily under the influence of multiple intoxicants and was considered unable to provide a statement. The public report does not identify the substances, say whether testing was performed or describe whether investigators interviewed Polk later. His inability to provide a statement at that point therefore should not be treated as an admission or as evidence of the underlying robbery allegations.
The hospital account police were investigating described an encounter that allegedly began before the victim reached Pope Street. The victim said he was picked up in a vehicle with Jobin, Polk and another man. Law&Crime, citing an affidavit of complaint, reported that police accused Jobin of arranging the victim’s presence by persuading him to ride with her. The affidavit said she sat in the back seat with the victim while the other men were in front. WREG separately reported that the victim described Jobin as the person who brought him to the North Memphis property.
Once the group arrived, another man came to the address, the victim told investigators. Local reporting said the victim knew him by the nickname “One-legged Jay.” The confrontation centered on money connected to a vehicle transaction, though the reports differ in how they describe who owed whom. Law&Crime said the victim reportedly owed money to the arriving man concerning a vehicle. WREG reported the victim’s account as a demand related to money the other man had provided for a vehicle purchase. No public document reviewed for this report fully explains the transaction, so the competing descriptions cannot be reconciled from the available material.
Police said the victim was then made to remove his clothes and directed toward the backyard. He refused, according to the account given to investigators. The victim was quoted as saying, “You’re going to have to kill me here.” Authorities allege Polk then produced a handgun and shot him through the right thigh. Two unidentified men allegedly began punching him in the head, knocking out several teeth. The reports describe serious injuries but do not provide a later medical update, and they do not say whether the gunshot damaged bone, arteries or other structures. Those details have not been publicly established.
The reported taking of the victim’s cellphone turned the police account into more than an assault investigation. Authorities alleged that property was taken during the violent encounter, forming part of the robbery accusation. The reports do not say whether investigators recovered the phone, whether location data from it was examined or whether communications before the meeting helped establish how the victim came to enter the vehicle. They also do not disclose whether detectives obtained surveillance footage from nearby homes or businesses. Those kinds of evidence may or may not exist; the public reporting simply does not establish them.
Jobin was arrested as investigators focused on her alleged role in bringing the victim to the scene. Unlike Polk, she was not publicly accused in the reports reviewed of firing the weapon or participating in the beating. Her alleged conduct was described as helping arrange the encounter and getting the victim to ride in the vehicle. That distinction matters to an accurate description of the case because police assigned different alleged actions to the two defendants even though both faced a robbery charge. No defense response from Jobin was included in the reports reviewed.
Polk’s charging picture was broader. WMC reported that he faced especially aggravated robbery, employment of a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony, being a felon in possession of a firearm, theft of property valued between $2,500 and $10,000 involving a motor vehicle, evading arrest and driving without a valid license. Law&Crime also reported the robbery, firearm and vehicle-theft allegations but used the term aggravated robbery for the shared charge. The public reporting does not explain whether the difference reflects separate records, a charging update or simply differing descriptions of the same case.
Other alleged participants remained less clearly identified in the reporting. The victim described another man traveling in the vehicle, a man who arrived at Pope Street in connection with the money dispute and two men who allegedly punched him. The available reports do not establish whether those descriptions refer to three separate people or whether some of the roles overlap. WREG initially reported that police were seeking several additional people. Later reports confirmed the arrests of Jobin and Polk but did not identify new defendants connected to the alleged beating.
The contrast between the detailed account of Polk’s apprehension and the limited public information about the underlying evidence leaves important questions unresolved. Police reported how officers found the BMW and how Polk was identified, but the sources reviewed do not describe ballistic evidence, fingerprints, DNA testing or a recovered firearm. Nor do they provide an account from the defendants challenging the victim’s statement. Those omissions do not resolve the merits of the case; they show only what investigators and news organizations had made public at the time of the reports.
Both defendants were expected in court shortly after their arrests, and Law&Crime later reported another court date for the following Monday. No later publicly indexed report located in the sources reviewed detailed a disposition of the charges, additional arrests or an updated medical condition for the victim. The allegations against Jobin and Polk therefore remain allegations unless and until established through the court process.
Author note: Last updated November 9, 2026.