The owners of the China Park restaurant in Winter Haven survived an attack with a meat cleaver after a temporary employee they offered a full-time job to attacked them.
On Jan. 10 at about 9:28 p.m., Zheng Shan and Jia Dong were in the kitchen of their restaurant with a temporary employee, Zhong Huang.
He was hired through an agency out of New York and had been working for the couple for two days.
Shan wanted to offer him a permanent position, but when she asked for his identification to complete the paperwork, he got upset and began yelling at her.
At that point Dong stepped in and told Huang to leave the restaurant. He continued to argue, and when Dong turned to go to the front of the restaurant, Huang picked up a meat cleaver and began swinging it, striking Dong in the neck and yelling that he was going to kill the couple.
Shan ran to help and was struck in the hand by the cleaver.
Huang eventually let go of the cleaver, but told the couple if they called police, he would come back and kill them when he got out of jail.
Shan called 9-1-1, and police took Huang into custody without incident on charges of attempted murder 2nd degree and tampering in felony second degree proceeding.
Neither Shan nor Dong suffered serious injuries in the incident.
