A Dallas police officer was arrested Wednesday on suspicion that he demanded and accepted money for not reporting potential violations of gambling laws, police said.

Senior Cpl. Minh Tran, 54, was arrested without incident on a felony bribery charge about 7 p.m. near Lakeland Drive and Ferguson Road, police said. The location of the arrest is believed to be a gambling hall.

Dallas police Senior Cpl. Minh Tran

The charge leveled against Cpl. Tran, who has been with the department since 2001, reportedly stems from an alleged shakedown of a Vietnamese family that was running a gambling operation.

Cpl. Tran is assigned to the northeast patrol division. He has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal affairs investigation, police said.

In July 2002, Cpl. Tran was featured in a story about himself and two other older recruits who had joined the force.

Cpl. Tran told The Dallas Morning News that hiring more Asian officers such as himself could help bridge the gap between the police department and the Vietnamese community, which has historically distrusted law enforcement and has helped made them easier targets for criminals. Cpl. Tran’s native language is Vietnamese and he also speaks French.

After graduating from the academy, Cpl. Tran had been assigned to the central patrol division, which includes Old East Dallas and a large Asian population. Last fall, he transferred to the northeast patrol division.

But his career on the force has had problems. Last year, he was suspended for one day after internal investigators found that the refused to take a report from a victim who had just been robbed.

“Instead, he instructed the citizen to call 911 because he was near the end of his shift,” department records show.

The suspension was subsequently reduced to a supervisor’s disciplinary report by Police Chief David Kunkle.