Security officer’s report of vehicle crash leads to arrest of Homeland Security director
New Orleans LA Jan 15 2021 Collin Arnold, the New Orleans homeland security and emergency preparedness director who was arrested on charges of crashing his city-owned vehicle into a car while drunk, has been suspended without pay pending a City Hall investigation.
Arnold was booked with driving while intoxicated and careless driving last week for allegedly striking another car in the 2800 block of Canal Street. He is be suspended for 20 days, administration spokesperson Beau Tidwell said Tuesday. Tidwell added that Mayor LaToya Cantrell is confident the emergency management team will continue to operate efficiently during his absence.
“Collin has been suspended without pay for 20 days while the matter is under investigation,” Tidwell said. “The mayor continues to be very satisfied with the leadership in NOSHEP and very proud of the work that team has done and confident that this incident will not disrupt their work.”
Arnold is the second high-profile public official in less than a year to be booked for crashing his taxpayer-financed car into another vehicle. City Councilman Jared Brossett pleaded not guilty to drunk driving charges in October.
Arnold, 46, has been head of his department since 2018. Before then, he served as a deputy director in Mitch Landrieu’s administration.
He is one of more than 70 administrative employees who receives a car on the taxpayers’ dime, according to city records. He is authorized to use a 2018 Ford Expedition under the City Hall’s take-home vehicle program.
The program, and similar ones across the country, have been scrutinized by government watchdogs as a perk with high potential for abuse. City officials defend it as a resource for public officials whose jobs require their services on an as-needed basis.
A security guard near the Regional Transit Authority building reported to police Thursday just after 12:30 a.m. that a vehicle had struck a parked car, according to details in Arnold’s arrest report as first reported by WDSU television. That driver was Arnold. When police arrived on the scene, an officer found him asleep behind the wheel, according to the report.
The officer shook Arnold awake. The officer said Arnold’s speech was slurred and he spoke in incomplete sentences, later deeming him “severely intoxicated,” according to the report.
