Exclusive: Watch body cam footage, hear 911 calls in Doug McLeod domestic violence case
House Speaker Philip Gunn says he has done all he can about state Rep. Douglas McLeod in the aftermath of his domestic violence arrest.
Gunn can’t expel the representative for George and Stone counties over what happened to McLeod’s wife in May 2019.
But he can and did limit McLeod’s power as a lawmaker by appointing him to one of the 33 seats on the House Ways and Means Committee. He did not appoint him to any other committee or place him in a leadership role.
“As you know, I have called on him more than once to resign,” Gunn said. “When this happened, I notified him then that this all was out and you need to consider resigning. You need to go deal with your family.”
But McLeod, now 59, did not resign after a judge found him not guilty of misdemeanor domestic violence. He was reelected to a third term in November after he ran unopposed.
After McLeod’s arrest, the Sun Herald filed public records requests to obtain the 911 calls made from his house, along with police reports, police dispatch calls and all patrol car and officer body camera footage.
The Sun Herald received the police report, but was denied access to the audio and video footage along with the 911 tapes and other evidence until after after the trial.
The Sun Herald later obtained the body camera footage from the George County Sheriff’s Office.
George County’s 911 coordinator denied access to the 911 tapes, saying Board of Supervisors attorney Robert Shepard recommended they follow a Mississippi law the prevents the release of emergency calls without a subpoena.
But Justice Court Judge Mike Bullock signed an order to have the tapes released to Justice Court.
911 calls
The incident began with a 911 call from Magen Merrill, a friend of McLeod’s wife Michele, at 8:51 p.m. Saturday, May 18. Merrill was staying in an upstairs room at the couple’s home for a few days.
“My friend just got punched in the nose by her husband and her nose is bleeding,” Merrill tells a 911 operator in a rushed and scared voice. “Like, he’s drunk right now and we need someone now because he’s got guns in here, too, so please hurry.”
Merrill later testified that Michele had run into the upstairs bedroom she was in, hand over her bloody face, saying her husband, who had been drinking wine for hours, hit her for not undressing quickly enough for sex. Merrill locked the door and called 911.
“He’s freaking drunk,” Merrill says on the tape. “He just come running in. Please hurry.”
She says “please hurry” five times during the call.
The dispatcher radios to deputies to respond to the home, and advises them the suspect may be the owner of McLeod Tire Service. “Just giving you guys a heads up,” she says. Doug McLeod is a former owner of that business.
Merrill then makes a second 911 call to get confirmation that officers are on their way.
“OK,” Merrill says, “because he’s downstairs banging around, and I don’t want to get shot through the door.”
After Deputy Robert Karg knocks on the front door of the home, Doug McLeod steps onto the porch with a drink in his hand. Karg asks what happened, and McLeod says, “what are you talking about?”
Karg asks who McLeod hit, and the representative says, “are you kidding me?” He then goes back inside and shuts the front door.
The deputy tells dispatch McLeod is “pretty severe 31,” code for intoxicated, and asks her to get the 911 caller back on the phone to tell her to come outside.
While waiting, the deputy tells dispatch “he’s in there hollerin’ at somebody but I can’t see him,” and “I can hear him beatin’ on a door or a window or something.”
The 911 operator calls Merrill back to let her know deputies are there and to come outside, but Merrill, sounding more scared, says McLeod is back outside of the bedroom door. She and Michele McLeod both say in unison “we can’t he’s at the door.”
In her testimony, Merrill said Doug McLeod was banging on the door.
After McLeod returns to the porch, his speech is slurred as he talks with deputies. The operator tells the women the officers are there and they could come out.
“As long as they have him,” Michele McLeod can be heard saying on the 911 call.
Merrill tells the operator “Hold him, handcuff him so we can go downstairs.”
Body camera footage
Body camera footage shows Michele McLeod crying and heaving as Merrill escorts her out of the house.
There is blood visible around her nose and mouth and covering her hands.
“Where is he? Where is he?” she asks as they walk outside.
He assures her that her husband is not in the yard or near the deputy’s vehicle.
“He’s drunk,” Michele McLeod told Karg.
The deputy takes Michele McLeod out near his patrol car so he can look at her injuries.
“Where is he?” Michele McLeod asks. Karg says her husband is on the porch.
Michele McLeod testified at trial that she was upset because she’s a private person and was wearing pajamas when she came out of the room.
“She took a pretty hard hit to the nose,” Karg tells dispatch. “I don’t believe anything is broken, but I want to get her checked out anyway.”
Later, Michele McLeod tells Karg that her husband gets angry when he’s under the influence of alcohol. For example, she said, he gets mad at her for working too much.
“Anything can trigger him to get like that,” she told Karg. “He lost it. He gets like that when he drinks too much.”
After deputies arrest the state representative, the 911 dispatcher calls the jail to let them know a drunken Doug McLeod is on the way “in case y’all need to make different arrangements for him cell-wise.”
Judge: McLeod’s wife ‘in fear of him’
Judge Bullock found Doug McLeod not guilty after Michele McLeod, in an unexpected move, testified in her husband’s defense.
She told the court her husband was in a “state of delirium” because he had mixed wine with prescription-strength Ibuprofen.
She said she was changing out of some yoga pants when her husband called out her name, she turned, lost her balance, and one of her husband’s limbs, “probably his arm,” hit her in the face.
“I was never assaulted,” she told the judge. “My husband has not hit anyone in the 40 years that I have known him.”
Though Bullock found McLeod not guilty and said he could see where something like that could happen, the judge noted that based on the evidence, which included 911 calls and police body camera footage, “Mrs. McLeod was in fear of Mr. McLeod. She was in fear of him.”
MS Leg talk: ‘A bad reflection on him’
Gunn told the Sun Herald he and other members of the House still have concerns about McLeod serving as a representative for the state even after a judge acquitted him.
The House speaker referred the matter to the Ethics Committee to determine if there was any action — from censorship to expulsion — that could be taken.
“This whole episode was a bad reflection on him, his family and on his capacity as a legislator, and that reflects upon the entire state of Mississippi,” Gunn said in an exclusive interview with the Sun Herald. “That’s why we take it seriously.”
Gunn has spent time talking with a legal team and said he has learned there is really nothing the House Ethics Committee can do because of the outcome of the criminal case.
The committee can only take action if a member has violated one of the House rules, the Mississippi constitution or a state statute.
“Well, he didn’t violate the House rules,” Gunn said. “There is nothing in the constitution he violated, so that only leaves the third option which is a violation of a statute, which is what he was accused of.”
Once Judge Mike Bullock found McLeod not guilty, he said, “the legal staff has pointed out to me the rules as they currently exist just do not provide an avenue upon which to act.”
“I don’t know if it’s ever been contemplated that a situation like this would happen,” Gunn said.
The Sun Herald made several unsuccessful attempts to reach Rep. Mac Huddleston, who is chair of the Mississippi House of Representatives Ethics Committee, but he did not respond.
Doug McLeod did not respond to multiple attempts to reach him for comment.
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREWhy we fought for body cam footage, 911 calls
After Michele McLeod unexpectedly testified in her husband’s defense, and Doug McLeod was found not guilty of domestic violence on Aug. 20, the Sun Herald requested all public records related to that night.
In accordance with the Mississippi Public Records Act, the Sun Herald asked for the body-camera footage, 911 calls and sheriff’s reports.
With the exception of the incident report, the Sun Herald was initially denied access to the other material.
We fought for access so the public could be better informed about the actions of the state lawmaker.
Now that the Legislature is in session, and House Speaker Philip Gunn says there is nothing the Ethics Committee can do, the Sun Herald is releasing the records to shed light on the details of that night.
In order to balance the public’s right to know the actions of a public official with the privacy of the victim, her image has been blurred in the video footage.
