Police Officer Terminated After DWI Arrest

By Robert Jordan
Daily Record of Dunn

COATS – A Coats Police Department officer was fired after an arrest in an impaired driving case Sunday, September 29 which found him in the back seat of a patrol car.

Officer William Beuckman was off duty when he was pulled over in the parking lot of the Dollar General store in Coats around 9 p.m. for a report of reckless driving. North Carolina State Highway Patrol Trooper Geoffrey C. Middlebrooks recorded the result of a breath test on Beuckman at the scene as 0.10, two one-hundredths of a point over the illegal limit of 0.08, according to online court records on eCourts.

William Franklin Beuckman Jr., 50, of Scotch Broom Lane in Coats, was arrested and charged with driving while impaired and reckless driving to endanger. He was released under an unsecured bond of $2,500.

Beuckman joined the Coats police force on Nov. 8. He was still on a year’s probation for his employment at the time of his arrest.

“After reviewing the events that transpired on the night of September 29th, 2024 involving Officer William Beuckman, it is the determination of the town manager and the chief of police that Officer William Beuckman be terminated for his actions on the night in question,” Coats Police Chief Kenneth Stocks noted in a written statement Monday, Sept. 30. “Officer Beuckman is within his one year probation with the Town of Coats.”