A temporary restaurant worker in Winter Haven, Florida, attacked his employers with a meat cleaver after they offered him a full-time job and asked for his ID, police said.
Zhong Huang, who started work at the China Park restaurant this week, went into a cleaver-swinging rage Tuesday and threatened to kill his bosses when they asked for his ID to put him on the payroll, according to an arrest report. He was booked on charges of attempted murder in the second degree and tampering.
Restaurant owner Zheng Shan told police Huang put the cleaver to the neck of her husband, Jia Bao Dong, and threatened to kill them both. Dong sustained several cuts and scrapes on his neck, according to the police report. Shan suffered a laceration on her finger when she tried to grab the cleaver, and told police Huang grabbed her by the hair and slammed her head into a counter when she threatened to call 911.
Shan told police that she hired the suspect two days earlier through a staffing company in New York. Her husband liked Huang’s work enough to offer him a full-time position.
Shan said she told Huang she needed his ID in order to put him on the payroll, and would have to call the police if he didn’t show it. Huang, she said, angrily resisted. Dong, who can be seen on surveillance video working in the kitchen, joined the argument and told Huang to leave.
Instead, Huang grabbed a meat cleaver, waved it in the air and threatened to kill his bosses, according to the police report. Surveillance video shows Huang charging Dong with the cleaver.
Huang held the cleaver to Dong’s neck and threatened to kill both his bosses if they called police, according to the report. After cutting Dong’s neck and slamming Shan’s head into the counter, Huang handed over the cleaver when Dong promised not to call the police.
With that, Shan called 911, the report said.
Huang left, issuing a final threat to kill the restaurant operators and their family “once he got out of jail,” according to the police report.
Responding officers found Huang standing outside the back door and arrested him. Police said he only speaks Mandarin, and couldn’t find a translator to question him.
