Following a jury trial, Christopher Mims was convicted of one count of aggravated battery and one count of aggravated assault. Mims appeals his convictions and the denial of his motion for new trial, arguing that the trial court erred in admitting the victim’s prior consistent statement over his hearsay objection and in admitting a police officer’s allegedly irrelevant testimony regarding the scope of the officer’s investigation. For the reasons set forth infra , we affirm. Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury’s guilty verdict,1 the evidence shows that late in the evening of May 6, 2008, Mims and his girlfriend, M. C., were in the parking lot of a local package store when they became embroiled in a heated argument over money. As the argument escalated, M. C. turned her back on Mims and began to walk away from him. But as she did, Mims struck her in the back of the head with a stick, which knocked her to the ground. With M. C. now lying face down on the ground, Mims continued striking her on the back of her head. And when M. C. attempted to turn over onto her back so that she could use her hands to defend herself, Mims began striking her in the face with his fists, breaking her jaw and knocking out several of her teeth in the process.
Shortly after Mims began his assault on M. C., a motorist who had driven by the scene flagged down a police officer —who was on patrol several blocks away —and informed him that she had just witnessed a male beating a female in the package store parking lot. When the officer arrived at the scene a few minutes later, Mims had already fled, but the officer found M. C. lying on the ground nearly unconscious and bleeding badly from the multiple blows to her face and head. As the officer rendered aid, a second officer arrived on the scene, and M. C. told both of them that Mims was the person who had assaulted her. Consequently, the second officer went to Mims’s residence, and after finding Mims with what appeared to be blood on his shirt, pants, and shoes, arrested him for the assault on M. C.
