2 Jailed in Alleged Attack on Off-Duty Officer

An off-duty Huntington Beach police officer was struck in the head with a beer bottle Sunday morning during a scuffle with a group of men he accused of hitting his sport utility vehicle with an unknown object, police said.

The officer, whose name was not released, and his passenger were driving home on Adams Avenue about 1:40 a.m. when they heard a thump on the back of the vehicle as they turned onto Beach Boulevard, said Huntington Beach Police Lt. Dan Johnson.

The officer parked his vehicle and confronted four men he saw running across the street, Johnson said.

“It turned into a fight,” Johnson said. “One suspect hit the officer in the face and the other broke a beer bottle over the officer’s head. He wasn’t cut. He just had a couple of lumps.”

The four men fled while the officer called 911 from a cell phone, Johnson said. The officer did not identify himself as a law enforcement official when he was assaulted, he said.

A Huntington Beach police helicopter located the men hiding in Newland Shopping Center. The injured officer identified Daniel Gonzalez, 25, and Aldo Arciniega, 23, both from Santa Ana, as the two men who assaulted him, police said. The other two men were questioned and released.

Gonzalez and Arciniega were arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and are being held at Huntington Beach Jail in lieu of $50,000 bail, police said.

The officer, who has been with the force for three years, was treated at a local hospital and released.