![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/jamaal-michael-grayson-mugshot.jpg\")
article <\/p>\n article <\/p>\n
Courtesy: Polk County Sheriff’s Office <\/p>\n
WINTER HAVEN, Fla. – A homeless man accused of pulling on car door handles in the parking lot of a Winter Haven<\/a> Zaxby\u2019s was arrested after police say he punched a 17-year-old boy whose father struck him and held him until law enforcement arrived.<\/p>\n The backstory:<\/p>\n Around 9 p.m. on Saturday, Winter Haven police went to Zaxby\u2019s located at 797 3rd St SW to investigate a reported suspicious incident and said they found a woman pacing frantically on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.<\/p>\n According to the Winter Haven Police Department, the woman told deputies that a man, later identified as 34-year-old Jamaal Michael Grayson, opened the back door of her truck and saw her 17-year-old son sitting inside.<\/p>\n READ: Man dies, woman injured after being found shot inside vehicle in Ruskin: HCSO<\/a><\/p>\n She told police that when Grayson saw the teen, he left the truck and tried to open two more vehicle doors int eh parking lot.<\/p>\n Police said the truck\u2019s owner and his son confronted Grayson, who started running toward Highway 17.<\/p>\n As they entered Highway 17, police said Grayson turned and punched the 17-year-old in the face, knocking him to the ground in a travel lane of Highway 17.<\/p>\n Officers said the owner of the truck pursued Grayson and caught up with him in the parking lot of a Longhorn Steakhouse. That\u2019s where, according to police, Grayson swung at the victim and the victim punched Grayson, causing him to fall and allowing the victim to hold Grayson until officers arrived.<\/p>\n Initially, according to WHPD, Grayson denied being at Zaxby\u2019s but changed his story, saying he was there \u2018looking for his lady\u2019.<\/p>\n Dig deeper:<\/p>\n Police said Grayson told them that a group of people was chasing him and he pushed someone down in the road, but he couldn\u2019t say who he pushed.<\/p>\n Grayson has had a prior felony battery conviction from October 2019 and a criminal mischief charge from last month, according to WHPD.<\/p>\n READ: MacDill Air Force Base announces the loss of three members of the 99th Air Refueling Squadron<\/a><\/p>\n Officers said they found a glass pipe with a burnt exterior and white residue that tested positive for methamphetamine in Grayson\u2019s pants pocket.<\/p>\n Grayson was arrested and charged with attempted burglary of an occupied vehicle, child abuse not resulting in great bodily harm, possession of methamphetamine, criminal mischief less than $1,000, prior conviction, felony battery and possession of drug paraphernalia.<\/p>\n The Source: This article was written with information found in a press release from the Winter Haven Police Department.<\/p>\n Winter Haven<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article Courtesy: Polk County Sheriff’s Office WINTER HAVEN, Fla. – A homeless man accused of pulling on car…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[630,47,28,30,29,115,7153,628,21956],"class_list":["post-193570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-news","tag-polk","tag-us","tag-winter-haven"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}