Marc Santia and Katherine Creag, NBC New York, June 16, 2015

A man who appears to be targeting Asian women in their 20s and 30s at random in New York City may have been spotted in the East Village Tuesday, hours after authorities linked a fourth case to the disturbing apparent race-based pattern of ambushes, police said.

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New images and video of the suspect were released early Tuesday in connection with the series of attacks on Asian woman in Manhattan since last week. In each case, police say the suspect approaches his victims and hits them in the head with a plastic bag containing a hard object and then runs off. The plastic bag can be seen in surveillance images released by police.

The latest attack was reported on Monday in Chinatown, when the suspect tried to strike up a conversation with a 41-year-old woman on Mulberry Street, authorities say.

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Police say the man began attacking Asian women last week in Chinatown, where he asked a 35-year-old, “Who is the president of the United States?” When she didn’t respond, police say he hit her in the face with the bag.

He also attacked another Asian woman on 30th Street and Park Avenue without saying a word.

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