A schizophrenic patient went from an assisted-living home to a hospital to jail after an altercation Tuesday night escalated into assaults on two police officers in Garden Grove, according to authorities.
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According to Lt. Ben Stauffer, the Garden Grove Police spokesman, officers were called to Nancy's Guest Village, 13902 Clinton St., a male schizophrenic patient that was not taking his medication and needed to be transferred to a hospital for treatment.
The caretaker tried to drive Nguyen to the hospital in her vehicle, but he became violent and began vandalizing her vehicle, so she fled to the office and called police, Stauffer said.
When officers arrived shortly after 11 p.m., the patient had fled to his room, where they tried to detain him, Stauffer said. But a male officer was knocked to the ground and the patient began punching him in the face, said the spokesman, who added a female cop tried to taser the patient but it did not stop him.
Enough officers finally arrived to subdue the man identified as 41-year-old Nam Hoag Nguyen, who was taken to Garden Grove Medical Center, medically cleared and then booked into Orange County Jail, Stauffer said.
The male officer, a 14-year veteran of the force, suffered a concussion, blurred vision, several contusions and a laceration above his left eye, said Stauffer, adding the cop was taken to UCI Medical Center, treated and released. The female officer, a 20-year-veteran, was also taken to the Orange hospital for treatment of a broken rib and pain to her left ankle before being sent home.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.