A Cook County politician told police during drunken arrest: ‘I’m an elected official’

CHICAGO – During her arrest earlier this month for driving under the influence of alcohol following a car crash in Uptown, Cook County Board of Review Commissioner Samantha Steele repeatedly told police officers that she was an elected official, made crude comments about one of the arresting officers and refused to cooperate with officer requests, public records released to the Chicago Tribune show.

Steele, 45, was arrested on Nov. 10 just before 9 p.m. on a charge of driving under the influence near Ashland and Winnemac avenues. A police report of the incident and video footage from the scene captured by body cameras worn by four Chicago police officers provide the most vivid details yet of the arrest. The Tribune obtained the report and images from Chicago police in response to its public records request.

Steele is one of three members of the Cook County Board of Review, which plays an important role in the property tax world in reviewing property tax appeals.

According to the arrest report, officers saw two crashed cars near the intersection. An officer reported that Steele was lying on the sidewalk near the crash and that Steele told him she had hit another car. At the time, the officer wrote in the report that Steele’s “eyes were bloodshot and glassy. I also smelled a strong odor of alcoholic beverage coming from her breath as she spoke.”

The first body-worn camera footage shows Steele in the front seat of the car she was driving, a Honda Accord, which had a badly damaged front bumper. Officers repeatedly asked Steele to show her driver’s license and proof of insurance, which she refused to provide.

At one point, while being questioned by police, Steele handed her phone to the officer and said, “It’s my lawyer,” according to the footage. Cook County Commissioner Scott Britton confirmed to the Tribune that he acted as her attorney that evening, but declined to comment further. Britton specializes in insurance defense and commercial litigation and has said he will not represent Steele in the DUI case.

In the bodycam footage, Britton could be heard over a speaker saying, “Hang up, Samantha, tell them I’m on my way.”

Steele repeatedly called Britton during her interactions with police as he drove from miles away to meet her at the scene. Some of the audio of the meetings has been redacted.

“I have to wait for him,” Steele told the officer. “It’s fine, I’ll wait for him.”

“Okay, ma’am. You don’t need to make things more complicated than they already are. It’s just an accident. I just want to see your driver’s license,” the officer said. “Do you want me to handcuff you and arrest you?”

“No.”

“Because right now you’re denying me any…”

“I am,” Steele said.

“You are, you realize that, right?”

“Yes. I am an elected official.”

“You are what?”

“I don’t want any of this,” she said. “I’ll wait for him.”

“You were involved in an accident, you hit several cars,” the officer responded.

“Two,” she said. “Because someone pulled out in front of me.”

Steele eventually surrendered her driver’s license, but had trouble opening the dashboard; she told officers that the white Accord she was driving belonged to a friend.

She also declined requests to get out of the car and take a field sobriety test.

“Ma’am, if you don’t get out of the car, I’m going to help you get out and you don’t want that,” an officer said.

“You don’t want that. I am an elected official,” she replied.

“Actually, yes, elected official of what?”

“Kook County.”

“Cook County, you’ve been elected, what office? What’s your name?’

She held out her hand, “I’m Sam.”

“Sam who?”

Britton again advised Steele on the phone to get out of the car. When she again refused to take a field sobriety test, she was handcuffed and placed in the back of a police car. She then agreed to take the field sobriety test, but during that test she “appeared to be swaying from front to back during the interview,” the arrest report said.

She hesitated in statements about hitting her head during the crash and whether she wanted medical attention. However, an ambulance had already arrived and she was eventually taken to Weiss Hospital.

Body camera footage from two officers inspecting the car showed an open but corked bottle of wine in the front passenger footwell.

“That’s good stuff too. Cabernet Sauvignon,” an officer said. They describe it as ‘half empty’.

The officer who accompanied Steele to the hospital turned off his body-worn camera. He wrote that at 9:30 p.m. he began a 20-minute observation of her and as she read a warning that her license could be suspended if she refused a breathalyzer test or blew a .08 or higher, she repeatedly said, “Is that your penis?” ?’ small.’ Steele refused all tests after the warning was read,” the arrest report said.

Steele has not yet commented on the arrest and did not respond to a request for comment Saturday. Her next court date is set for December 27.

Steele, a Democrat who promised to implement data-driven reforms to the three-member board, previously served as an assessment official in Indiana. She was elected in 2022 to represent most of the north side of the county and has since competed against her two other colleagues on the board.

Last month, she was given a lenient sanction by the county inspector general for leaking details of a property tax appeal over the possible future location of the Bears’ stadium in Arlington Heights. She was also sued by a former employee who claimed he was fired for refusing to reveal certain information about that same profession. That employee, Frank Calabrese, received the same footage of Steele’s arrest and shared it with the media on Friday.

The only Republican on the Cook County Board, Commissioner Sean Morrison, has called on Steele to resign, a request he repeated on social media Saturday.

“Still no accountability, no remorse, no apology to the officers she horribly abused and abused,” he wrote on , most importantly, for our police officers! This contempt is out of character for every elected official.”