A nail salon worker and a customer have been arrested and charged for their involvement in an intense nail salon fight that broke out in Brooklyn last week.
According to a criminal complaint provided by the Brooklyn DA's office, the incident took place around 9:35 p.m. on Friday at New Red Apple Nails on Nostrand Avenue in East Flatbush. Witness Mercy Maduka, who posted the video below on Facebook, said the fight was sparked by a bad eyebrow job: "So I'm at the nail salon and they fucked up a lady eyebrow and she refused to pay then a fight broke outttt," she wrote, saying the employees hit the customers "like animals."
In the video, you can see an employee with a blue broomstick striking a woman until she leaves the store; other employees grab objects from around the store to seemingly defend themselves while a few other customers yell back and forth with them.
According to the criminal complaint, nail salon worker Huiyue Zheng, 32, was charged with assault, menacing, harassment and weapon possession for the incident. Customer Christina Thomas, 21, told police that Zheng repeatedly hit her in the back with the broom, causing her to suffer a laceration to the neck, and substantial pain to the back.
Thomas was also arrested and charged with assault, menacing, and harassment. Nail salon worker Li Lin claims that Thomas punched and slapped her in the face, and dragged her on the floor, suffering several lacerations to the face and substantial neck pain.
Local residents staged a protest at the nail salon on Sunday, with people posting several signs to the shuttered nail salon reading "Black $$$ matter," "They beat black women here," and "Don't spend here." One woman offered a few more details in an Instagram video: "We're out here today because a grandmother came here with her two granddaughters to get their nails done. The granddaughter got her nails done, her feet done and her eyebrows done. She paid for the nails, she paid for the feet, her eyebrows were messed up, she didn't want to pay for them...Because she did not want to pay the $5 for the messed up eyebrows, they attacked this grandmother and her two granddaughters with sticks, threw acetone on them, and then called the police on them."
And in a followup Facebook post, witness Maduka wrote, "Some of y’all asking why I didn’t help wellll it’s because the mf cops were there already all armed and shit and thats like 10 Asians with weapon tf I’m not trying to die on my bday or go to jail on my mf bday so please get off mi cocky. Thanks very much."
