Body camera videos show a Cook County, Illinois, politician refusing to cooperate with police and warning that she is “an elected official” during her arrest for an alleged charge of driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) earlier this month.
According to WBEZ, 45-year-old Samantha Steele, a Democratic politician who serves as the commissioner of the Cook County Board of Review, was arrested on November 11 for an alleged DUI.
A police body camera video shows Steele repeatedly refusing to cooperate with a police officer’s instructions to show him her license and insurance after crashing into another vehicle. In the video, Steele can be heard saying, “I’m an elected official,” in response to the officer threatening to handcuff and arrest her for refusing to cooperate.
In another body camera video, a police officer can be heard warning Steele, “Ma’am, if you don’t exit the vehicle … I’m going to help you to exit, and you don’t want that.” In response to the police officer’s warning, Steele said, “You don’t want that! I’m an elected official.” The police officer then asked, “Elected official of what?” prompting Steele to answer, “Cook County.”
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Asked to provide the officer with her name, Steele said her name was “Sam” but refused to give the officer her full name. The Cook County politician also told the police officer that she did not “want to be on the video.” At least two police officers can be heard explaining that she was already “on video” as they continued to move forward with her arrest.
According to WBEZ, Steele later drank from what appeared to be a water bottle and used her cell phone to call Democratic Cook County Commissioner Scott Britton, whom she repeatedly described as her attorney. After receiving advice from Britton, Steele eventually provided the police officers with her driver’s license and exited the car. However, she refused to submit to a field sobriety test.
During the arrest, officers also allegedly found a bottle of wine located near the front passenger seat. The bottle of wine was allegedly half-empty at the time of the incident.
Following Steele’s arrest, The Chicago Sun-Times published an editorial calling on Steele to resign over “the embarrassing situation.”
“Steele was arrested on the North Side for DUI earlier this month, which is bad enough,” the editorial stated. “But her actions during the encounter as shown in recently released police body camera footage — from her refusal to cooperate with officers, to a pitiful attempt to throw around her weight as a public official — are enough to consider Steele unfit to hold elected office. In fact, she should resign.”
