State Rep. Doug McLeod, R-Lucedale, facing charges of misdemeanor domestic violence in connection with an alleged incident involving his wife, has been asked to resign by House Speaker Philip Gunn.
“I have attempted to contact Rep. McLeod to request his resignation, if in fact, these allegations are true,” Gunn said. “These actions are unacceptable for anyone.”
The details of the arrest, reported by the Biloxi Sun Herald, say McLeod punched his wife in the face, bloodying her nose, after he thought she was undressing for sex too slowly. Deputies with the George County Sheriff’s Department who arrived at McLeod’s home report the lawmaker was visibly drunk, slurring his words and unable to stand without leaning on a guardrail.
McLeod, first elected to the House in 2011, is unopposed this year in his re-election bid to south Mississippi District 107.
A Mississippi Association of Educators event with McLeod, originally scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, will be rescheduled, according to a representative for MAE.
McLeod is not the first Mississippi lawmaker to be arrested this year. In January, Sen. Terry Burton, R-Newton, was arrested for a third DUI. And in September, police arrested Rep. Greg Snowden, R-Meridian, on suspicion of a DUI after he rear-ended another car and refused a breathalyzer.
Although neither lawmaker resigned his seat, Burton, who had a stroke in January, stepped down as president pro tem of the Senate after his arrest and will not seek re-election. Snowden remains speaker pro tem in the House.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.