Councilmember Jared Brossett will likely face his second DWI charge in the past 16 months after being booked into Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office early Monday morning.
The Times-Picayune reported that New Orleans police found Brossett asleep in a running vehicle by the New Orleans Police, less than a mile away from the spot of his 2020 crash.
According to the officer's report, police were dispatched to the 3100 block of Elysian Fields when a passerby reported a man sleeping in a 2021 Lexus with the engine running. The report also stated that the councilmember had a strong smell of alcohol on his breath when police arrived on the scene.
Brossett was arrested and delivered to a DWI testing center, where he asked to speak to a lawyer and agreed to take a field sobriety test. After failing the test, Brossett was then moved to the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office.
Brossett was booked into the holding center at 5:14 a.m. Monday, according to OPSO’s online jail records, and will have a court hearing later in the day.
A former state representative, Brossett is currently running for a new position in the New Orleans City Council, the At-Large Position 2. On November 13, voters will decide between Brossett, former State Sen. JP Morrell, Councilmember Kristin Gisleson Palmer and Green Party candidate Bart Everson. In a rare political move last week, Palmer and Brossett co-endorsed each other to alienate Morrell.
While working as a city council aide in 2006, Brossett was arrested for his first drunk driving charge in Miami Beach, Florida, which he pleaded down to a reckless driving charge.
In 2020, while a councilmember, Brossett drunkenly drove a city-owned vehicle over the neutral ground of Elysian Fields and struck another car head-on in Gentilly. A bystander took a video of the crash, reported NOLA.com, which showed the councilmember slurring his words and appearing incoherent.
While on Louisiana Considered earlier this month, Brossett said the 2020 case is resolved, and he has voluntarily attended classes for addictive behavior at Ochsner.