Gitem Demissie (left) with his brother Zelalem Amare
A year ago, we reported on the unsolved killing of Gitem Demissie, an Ethiopian restaurant owner who was shot in the Ibex Ethiopian Bar and Restaurant on Murfreesboro Pike in what police called "a true assassination."
It's been two years now and the case remains unsolved. Metro Nashville Police Department spokesperson Don Aaron tells the Scene that there is little new to report publicly. The case is being handled by MNPD's Homicide Cold Case Unit.
Demissie was killed around midnight on March 18, 2017, as he prepared to close up. Surveillance footage from that night shows a man in a hoodie walking quickly into the restaurant, raising his gun and firing multiple shots across the bar at Demissie. Another man who had been sitting at the bar is seen scrambling to the floor, and the gunman briefly points the gun at him. The shooter then returns to Demissie who was still moving and fires more shots into his body. Ultimately, Demissie was shot 10 times.
Demissie's younger brother, Zelalem Amare, flew Demissie's body back to Ethiopia and built him a final resting place in their hometown of Gohatsion. Back in Nashville, the apparently cold-blooded killing shook a close-knit Ethiopian immigrant community.
From our 2018 story:
“I don’t know what kind of enemy he would have to target him like that,” says Tewodros Manaye, an elected leader of the Ethiopian Community Association in Nashville. “But for a working guy to be killed the way he was killed, it was a complete shock. Not [just] for the people who know him, but for the entire community.”Manaye is speaking to the Scene at the Ethio Coffee House on Murfreesboro Pike, where everyone seems to know him. After Demissie’s murder, Manaye stayed in close touch with the police and was overwhelmed by questions from community members about what had happened. He arranged for counseling for the man who witnessed the killing. In April, the community association wrote a letter to then-Mayor Megan Barry seeking to draw attention to the unsolved murder case. Attached was a petition signed by 1,261 people.
Manaye says the police appeared to be taking the case as seriously as one would hope. In the weeks and months after the murder, he says he was told that detectives had interviewed around 100 people. He says police told him they had surveillance footage that showed an argument between Demissie and another individual in the restaurant several days before the killing, and that investigators were following a couple of potential leads about business-related disputes. But that was many months ago, and no arrests have been made.
“There has never been a case like that [in the community] before,” says Father Mesfin Tesemma, the priest at Hamerenohe Kidanemihiret Ethiopian Orthodox Church, where Demissie was a founding member and Amare sang in the choir. “He was well-known by almost everybody, because of his business. Everybody knows him, including children. It was something that nobody expected to happen and that has really affected not only the church members and the Ethiopian community, but also the children who knew him. Because what does that mean? Are we safe?”
Demissie's killing is far from the only homicide case growing colder by the day as detective search for any leads, and family and friends wait for answers. According to MNPD, 27 of Nashville's 88 homicides from 2018 remain open. From 2017, the year Demissie was killed, 36 of 109 homicides remain unsolved.
