Police in the USA are hunting a potential serial killer following a series of attacks on homeless people.

A manhunt has been launched after multiple victims sleeping on the streets of Washington DC and New York City were brutally assaulted – leaving two dead and three injured.

Officials are convinced that the same man carried out the attacks.

Police in the two US cities are working together to find the perpetrator, who fatally shot and stabbed a man in Washington on Wednesday and murdered another man in New York on Saturday.

Video footage has been released showing the suspect, who officials believe also shot and injured two rough sleepers in Washington earlier in March and one other person in New York on Saturday.

Now homeless people are being urged to seek refuge at city-owned shelters to avoid further bloodshed.

Metropolitan Police chief Robert Contee explained: ‘We are committed to sharing every investigative path, clue and piece of evidence with our law enforcement partners to bring this investigation to a swift conclusion and the individual behind these vicious crimes to justice.’

The similarities of each shooting and evidence found at the scenes has led police to believe the same man is behind the attacks.

Officers added that the victims were set upon without provocation.

New York police commissioner Keechant Sewell said the city’s ‘homeless population is one of our most vulnerable and an individual preying on them as they sleep is an exceptionally heinous crime’.

The city’s mayor, Eric Adams, said a taskforce composed of police officers and a homeless outreach team will focus on finding unhoused people in the subways and other locations and urge them to seek refuge at city-owned shelters.

‘The case is a clear and horrific intentional act of taking the life of someone, it appears, because he was homeless,’ he said.

‘Two individuals were shot while sleeping on the streets, not committing a crime but sleeping on the streets.’

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is also helping with the hunt.

The attacks have drawn comparisons with the killing of four homeless men beaten to death as they slept on the streets in New York’s Chinatown in 2019.

Another homeless man, Randy Santos, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in those attacks.

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