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WESTMINSTER (CNS) - A 12-year veteran of the Garden Grove Police Department was granted a request today to have his case of beating and threatening two transients while on duty diverted into a program for the military.
Kevin Dinh, 39, had been charged with four counts of attempted criminal threats, two counts of battery and two counts of assault and battery by an officer, all misdemeanors. Dinh could have faced up to four years in jail if convicted as charged at trial. Prosecutors objected to the request to be placed into a diversion program.
Dinh and another officer were sent to a restaurant on Sept. 20, 2021, when some homeless people refused to leave the front of the eatery, according to Kimberly Edds, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office. Dinh allegedly struck one of the transients in the back of the head and twisted the man's hands behind his back before threatening to knock his teeth out if he saw him again, Edds said. On a call to an Orange County Transportation Authority bus stop last Oct. 18 regarding a package thief, Dinh allegedly struck a handcuffed suspect in the head and grabbed and pulled his hair before he was let go, Edds said.