Gun, knife, ax handle allegedly used in domestic assault

A Chickasha man and woman were both arrested after a domestic disturbance around 5 a.m. on July 3, involving the use of a semi-automatic rifle, knife and an ax-handle.

Upon arrival, Officer Clayton Hobbs made contact with the female subject, Leigh Johnson. Johnson kept claiming a man shot at her, finally identifying her shooter as a man named Donnie.

Another officer assisted Hobbs in finding the male subject at the residence, Donnie Palmer, in a back bathroom. Palmer was ordered out of the bathroom by gunpoint and complied, according to the report.

Palmer told the officers his gun was in a safe and gave them permission to retrieve the loaded rifle.

Palmer advised he and Johnson had been arguing most of the night. He said she attacked him with a knife, ax-handle and her fists at different points during the evening. Palmer was in fear for his life, he said, and decided to lay down in his bedroom with the gun. Johnson then came into the bedroom and began arguing with him about the gun. During this argument, he told police, it was accidentally shot.

Hobbs observed marks and bruises around the eyes, back and shoulders of Palmer.

Johnson advised officers she and Palmer had begun arguing over her phone. She denied any use of an ax handle but said when Palmer would not give her phone back to her, she poured a drink on him and walked away.  It was then that Palmer shot at her before locking himself in the bathroom.

Hobbs noticed a bullet hole near the ceiling of the bedroom door, where Johnson said she had been standing during the fight.

Palmer’s mother told officers she heard Johnson saying, “I’m going to kill you” during an earlier phone conversation with her son.

Both Palmer and Johnson accepted requests to write statements about the incident, then transported to the Grady County Jail.