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SYRACUSE — A Bountiful police officer was arrested last month and charged with DUI after investigators say he drove an unmarked police vehicle with a loaded AR-15 while under the influence.
On Feb. 19, a Davis County sheriff's deputy was assisting in a possible burglary call near 2000 West and the West Davis Highway when he reported seeing a Ford Bronco Sport driving the wrong way around a roundabout.
In the body camera footage obtained through a public records request, Brandon Beecher, a 32-year-old off-duty detective with the Bountiful Police Department, was pulled over and told officers he was "just circling the neighborhood looking for my buddy."
"While talking to Brandon, I noticed his eyes were glossy, bloodshot and watery and his words were slow and slurred," the deputy wrote in a police report.
When asked in the video why he went through the roundabout incorrectly, Beecher said, "It was the middle of the night, I didn't think anyone was coming through," and denied having anything to drink that night. A Syracuse police sergeant arrived on scene, and told Beecher, "I don't know you but you seem like you're kind of slurring a bit." Beecher responded, "Nope, I'm good to go."
More officers responded to the scene and Beecher was asked to perform field sobriety tests, which he refused, saying, "I understand the purposes of the tests and I understand there is no real benefit for me, in the capacity of a citizen, to do those tests," the report states. The deputy wrote that he smelled alcohol after Beecher exited the vehicle and saw him "leaning as he walked."
Later, the body camera footage shows Beecher's wife talking to police at the scene. She said that they were drinking earlier in the night before Beecher told her she didn't have to answer any questions.
"Forget that he's a cop, it doesn't matter," the Syracuse sergeant said to the deputy in the video. "If he is too intoxicated to be operating that vehicle, then he needs to be held liable for it."
Beecher, who has been an officer for eight years, was arrested and taken to the Syracuse Police Department and given a chemical test showing his blood-alcohol content to be .137 an hour after the initial traffic stop, or over two times the Utah legal limit of 0.05, according to the report. He was released on citation and charged with driving under the influence, a class B misdemeanor.
A lieutenant from the Bountiful Police Department picked up the unmarked vehicle containing police equipment, a gun rack and a loaded assault rifle.
Beecher, who resigned earlier this week, was put on administrative leave the day of the incident while an internal investigation was conducted, Bountiful Police Chief Ed Biehler said.
The department is forwarding its findings to the Peace Officer Standards and Training organization, which will conduct its own investigation that could affect Beecher's police certification status.
