A high-ranking member of Mayor Brandon Johnson\u2019s administration was arrested over the weekend on drunk driving charges outside the Park District\u2019s South Shore Cultural Center, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Luis Zepeda, first deputy commissioner of the Department of Streets and Sanitation, was taken into custody about 5:30 a.m. Sunday in the 7100 block of South Exchange Ave, according to Chicago police, and released later that day.<\/p>\n
He was cited for two misdemeanor counts of driving under the influence and one misdemeanor count of obstructing traffic. It wasn\u2019t immediately clear when his next court date was.<\/p>\n
Asked whether City Hall was separately disciplining Zepeda, Johnson\u2019s spokesperson deferred comment to DSS, which confirmed an internal investigation but did not elaborate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are aware of an incident that occurred last weekend involving a DSS staff member,\u201d DSS spokesperson Ryan Gage wrote in a statement late Monday. \u201cThe matter is being addressed internally and by CPD, and we have no further comment at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zepeda could not immediately be reached for comment. He was in a personal vehicle at the time of the incident, not a city-issued one, and was not working in his capacity as a government official. <\/strong><\/p>\n Records show Zepeda has worked for the city for almost two decades, currently earning about a $211,000 annual salary as second-in-command of the department tasked with picking up the garbage and plowing snow and debris off Chicago\u2019s roads.\u00a0Before being promoted to his current role in 2021, he was tapped as DSS assistant general superintendent under Mayor Rahm Emanuel\u2019s administration after working as a ward superintendent since 2007.<\/p>\n Tribune reporter AD Quig contributed to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A high-ranking member of Mayor Brandon Johnson\u2019s administration was arrested over the weekend on drunk driving charges outside…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":126361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5295,5386,1818,1370,50,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-436063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-politics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}