St. Paul police said Tuesday they believe a man suspected in a series of random assaults in the Macalester-Groveland, Merriam Park and Snelling-Hamline neighborhoods was arrested in Minneapolis.

Minneapolis police took Justin K. Kaneakua, 38, into custody on Sunday on suspicion of auto theft.

A 19-year-old woman reported her silver Subaru Outback was stolen about 9 a.m. Jan. 7 on Third Avenue South, near East 39th Street.

On that same day, in St. Paul, a 53-year-old man reported he was almost struck by a Subaru Outback about 11:20 a.m. He yelled at the driver to watch where he was going, and the driver got out and slapped him in the face.

Minutes later, a man in an Outback damaged a vehicle in an alley in the area of Ashland Avenue and Pascal Street. He then slapped a 71-year-old witness.

On the afternoon of Jan. 10, a man in an Outback pulled out a metal pipe and told a 73-year-old man to, “Get away from here,” according to police.

The suspect was described as covering his face with a scarf or ski mask, but people could see he had a teardrop tattoo.

Police believe the same man hit a 21-year-old man in the face with a wrench on Dayton Avenue near Fairview Avenue on Dec. 12 and, soon after, threw a Gatorade bottle at a 19-year-old woman on Roblyn Avenue near Cleveland Avenue.

Kaneakua has not been charged in the auto theft or St. Paul cases, and is being held in the Hennepin County jail.

St. Paul police investigators are looking into the cases to determine whether they can bring them to prosecutors for charging consideration, a police spokesman said Tuesday.

Kaneakua, of Minneapolis, was sent to prison in 2007 for threats of violence and for aggravated robbery in 2000. He’s also been convicted of theft at various times and third-degree assault in 2013.