MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Court records show a man charged with shooting a woman overnight in Hickory Hill is a convicted felon with a 20-year history of violent charges.
Police say Christopher Coleman, 40, turned himself in Friday morning after shooting a woman repeatedly during a domestic dispute at a home on Crescent Park Drive.
According to arrest affidavits, Coleman has spent the past two decades in and out of jail on charges ranging from assault to aggravated assault and aggravated rape.
“I think it’s very sad that every day we turn on the news, somebody’s getting shot. People need to stop that,” said neighbor Lennon Perry. “It’s getting worse all around the city because people, they’ll pick up a gun and start shooting like they’re in the Wild Wild West, like some cowboy show. It’s not. This is the real reality, and we need to stop it.”
Coleman’s legal troubles in Shelby County began in 1999 with aggravated assault charges.
In 2010, he served three years in jail for shooting another man in 2004.
Later that year, Coleman was arrested for attacking another inmate.
In 2005, he was charged with rape, but was never convicted.
The next year, when Coleman was 26, he was slapped with a harassment charge for threatening the father of a teen girl he was trying to date.
The following years brought even more aggravated assault charges when prosecutors say Coleman shot his brother in the genitals over a necklace, but he was also cleared in that case.
In 2014, Coleman was convicted of threatening to shoot and kill his neighbor and trying to run him over.
Coleman’s latest charges before Friday morning’s arrest came in 2018, when he was arrested for domestic violence and accused of attacking his girlfriend and her son.
Investigators aren’t saying yet exactly what happened in this latest case and no court date for Coleman is listed online.
Police also haven’t explained Coleman’s relationship to the victim or released her name. She is in critical condition, according to investigators.
