CHICAGO — During her arrest earlier this month for driving under the influence of alcohol after crashing a car in Uptown, Commissioner Samantha Steele repeatedly told police she was an elected official, made crude comments about one of the arresting officers and refused to cooperate with police requests, publicly . records released for The Chicago Tribune show.

Steele, 45, was arrested on the DUI charge just before 9 p.m. Nov. 10 near Ashland and Winnemac avenues. A police report on the incident as well as video footage of the scene from body cameras worn by four Chicago police officers provide the most vivid details yet of the arrest. The Tribune obtained the report and footage 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 a significant role in the property tax world when it decides property tax appeals.

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

The earliest 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 the officer her phone and said, “That’s my lawyer,” according to the footage. Cook County Commissioner Scott Britton has confirmed to the Tribune that he acted as her attorney that night, but he declined to comment further. Britton specializes in insurance defense and commercial litigation and has said he is not representing Steele in the DUI case.

In the body-cam footage, Britton could be heard on speakerphone saying, “Just hang up, Samantha, tell me 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 from the meetings is edited.

“I have to wait for him,” Steele told police. “It’s good, I’ll wait for him.”

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

“No.”

“Because right now you refuse to give me anything…”

“I am,” Steele said.

“You are, you realize that, right?”

“Yes. I’m an elected official.”

“You are what?”

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

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

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

Steele eventually turned over his license but had trouble opening the dashboard; she told police the white Accord she was driving belonged to a friend.

She also refused requests to leave the car and take a field sobriety test.

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

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

“Actually I do, elected to what?”

“Cook County.”

“Cook County, you’re elected, what office? What’s your name?”

She held out her hand, “I’m Sam.”

“Sam who?”

Britton, on the phone, again advised Steele to get out of the car. When she again declined to take a field sobriety test, she was handcuffed and placed in the back of a squad car. She then agreed to take the field sobriety test, but during it she appeared to be “rocking back and forth during the interview,” the arrest report said.

She wavered 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.

“It’s good stuff, too. Cabernet sauvignon,” said one officer. They described it as “half-empty.”

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

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

A Democrat who promised to bring data-driven reforms to the three-member board, Steele was previously an assessment officer in Indiana. She was elected to represent most of the county’s north side in 2022, and has since butted heads with her two other colleagues on the board.

Last month she got one mild sanction from the county inspector general for leaking details of a property tax appeal involving the potential future location of the Bears’ stadium in Arlington Heights. She was too sued by a former employee who claimed he was fired for refusing to release certain information related to the same appeal. The employee, Frank Calabrese, obtained the same image 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 Saturday on social media.

“Still no accountability, no remorse, no apology to the officers she horribly maligned and abused,” he wrote on X. “It gives an insight into the arrogance and disrespect for the rule of law and most importantly our police officers! This contempt is unbecoming of any elected official.”