SAN JOSE — Two men were hit by blowgun darts along a stretch of Meridian Avenue in South San Jose on Thursday evening, inflicting a painful leg injury to one of the victims and leaving scant leads on the mystery attacker, authorities and witnesses said.

The first instance occurred about 7:30 p.m. in the parking lot of a shopping center at Meridian and Hillsdale avenues, according to San Jose police. A man was leaving a restaurant with his family when he suddenly felt a “sharp piercing pain” in one of his calves.

He was surprised to find a 5-inch blow dart that had lodged in his leg, the man told this newspaper. He pulled out the dart and looked around, but did not immediately locate a culprit.

The victim went home to treat the wound before calling police a little over two hours later. By that point, police had responded to a second dart attack that was reported about 8:20 p.m. Thursday, where man riding a bicycle near Meridian Avenue and Ridgewood Drive — about two miles from the first site — found a similar dart lodged in his jacket.

“He doesn’t know where it came from,” Officer Albert Morales said.

The first victim, who asked that his name be withheld out of safety concerns, said as he was leaving the parking lot, he noticed a man acting shiftily and avoiding eye contact with him. He described him as a white man in his early 20s, about 5-foot-10 with a medium build and last seen wearing dark clothes and a dark hoodie pulled over a white baseball cap.

The bicyclist did not appear to be injured. But the man who was hit in the leg said he was still in pain Friday afternoon, and had blood work done and took a tetanus shot.

“There’s some pain, but mostly I’m concerned about infectious disease,” he said, noting that the dart had to penetrate the jeans he was wearing and still got about an inch deep into his calf.

Reading this on your iPhone or iPad? Check out our new Apple News app channel here and click the + at the top of the page to save to your Apple News favorites.

He contacted this newspaper so that residents and patrons in the area are on alert, and also to urge them to report any related activity more quickly than he did.

“I waited a couple of hours, and by that time he’s long gone,” he said.

The attacks occurred almost a year to the day after two pedestrians on the Golden Gate Bridge were hit by blowgun darts the afternoon of Feb. 12.

Anyone with information about the case can contact San Jose police at 408-277-8900 or leave a tip with Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers at 408-947-STOP or at svcrimestoppers.org.