NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A judge has sent the case against a man accused of shooting a Dollar General manager during a robbery to a grand jury.
Akeem Forman, 22, was in court Wednesday for a preliminary hearing. Forman was charged with especially aggravated robbery in the robbery and shooting at the Dollar General on Bell Road on June 4.
The manager, Christina Sims, testified during the hearing, and identified Forman as the man who shot her during the robbery.
She said that she was working in the clothing department when a man approached her with a rifle. Sims said, at first, she thought it was a toy, but he soon fired off two warning shots into the floor while demanding money.
After emptying the registers at the front of the store, he forced Sims and another employee into the office to empty the safe. While she was emptying the safe, Sims said the robber said "hurry up or I'll shoot you."
"Kind of not really believing it was really happening, I said ‘You're not going to shoot me.' Because I was still holding the money out to him so it wasn't really meant with an attitude, it was more disbelief or I guess, like, confusion with the whole situation," she said. "So then he fired a shot, which at the time I didn't know if it had hit me or not."
Sims said she threw the money out of the office, and then she and the other employee closed the door to lock the gunman out of the office.
Sims was taken to Southern Hills Hospital, where she was treated and released for a gunshot wound to her calf. Sims also showed the wound to the courtroom.
South Precinct detective William Stewart also testified Forman did not seem to be remorseful about the shooting during questioning after his arrest.
"I was really hoping that you (Forman) would have a conscience, and ask how the girl was that you shot. And he goes 'I ain't worried about that. You don't tell somebody that's got a gun pointed at you that you're not going to shoot them,'" Stewart recalled.
Forman was arrested last Thursday night at an apartment complex in Cane Ridge. Forman allegedly admitted to police to robbing a Subway in Smyrna and the Dollar General store in Manchester. Police also discovered items taken from the robberies inside his residence.
Akeem Forman
