Gut-churning, newly released footage from police officers on Chicago’s North Side shows the horrifyingly dramatic arrest of top Illinois Democrat Samantha Steele, the very prominent Cook County Board of Review Commissioner. Steele was driving under the influence earlier in November when she crashed into multiple cars and was arrested following a tense standoff with police officers.
In the newly released footage of the incident, footage obtained by Frank Calabrese, an election consultant, Steele can be heard invoking her status as a prominent member of the governmental apparatus in an attempt to get out of trouble. The officers weren’t having it, leading to a tense standoff before she was arrested.
The bodycam footage primarily shows that chaotic, tense standoff scene on November 10, with Steele being told by officers to exit her vehicle and refusing to comply with their orders, declaring “I’m an elected official,” and demanding her attorney. Officers, noting her obvious intoxication and the cars she crashed into, told her to cooperate.
Further, the video shows the drunken, belligerent government official trying to bully the Chicago cops into letting her go while they try to handle the increasingly infuriating situation. At one point, they find an open bottle of wine in the back floor of her vehicle, all while she insults them repeatedly, at one point even asking, “Is your penis this small?”
Reporting on the arrest and the reason for it in a post-arrest report, an officer involved with the situation wrote that she looked drunk and her breath smelled like alcohol, saying, “I observed her eyes were bloodshot and glassy. I also detected a strong odor of alcoholic beverage coming from her breathe as she spoke.”
While being arrested, Steele, in just her first term as a Cook County elected official, refused to perform a field sobriety test, nor did she tell officers how much alcohol she consumed before starting to drive. When asked about that by the officers, she declared, “I want my lawyer, and I am not talking to you.” Then, when finally arrested, Steele was handcuffed and taken to the hospital, as she had been complaining about head pain.
That’s not all. She also said, while the responding officers dealt with her, “I’m an elected official. I don’t want any of this… I’ll wait for [my attorney to arrive].” Steele also said, when a responding officer alleged that she “hit several cars,” “two,” holding up two of her fingers as she responded to him.
Additionally, when a police sergeant showed up to the scene and said, “If you don’t exit the vehicle, I’m gonna help you to exit and you don’t want that,” Steele snapped back, You don’t want that.” She then repeated her comments about being an “elected official.” Police added that she used her, as the put it, “small wrists” to slip out of her handcuffs. She further declared, “I don’t wanna be on the video.” She was told, “You are on the video,” and she repeated, “I’m waiting for my attorney.”
Watch the bodycam footage here:
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