A 72-year-old woman was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries after she was assaulted in downtown Victoria on Friday.
Victoria police were called just after 12:30 p.m. after a woman was hit by an unknown man on Douglas Street, near Fort Street.
The man left following the assault.
Police said the man reportedly asked the woman for money but she declined.
The man then pushed the woman to the ground and struck her several times.
A bystander was reported to have intervened to stop the man. B.C. Ambulance Service paramedics transported the victim to hospital.
Police identified a suspect and found him about 4 p.m. in the 900-block of View Street.
He was taken to police cells and later released with a court date and conditions.
A 42-year-old man is facing recommended charges of assault.
Const. Cam McIntyre said there have been other recent cases like this one.
“It’s another concerning violent incident where these two people are unknown to each other,” he said.
“We recently had a five-year-old boy that was struck at random in Victoria by another violent individual, and there’s just a number of these very concerning attacks on citizens in our community.”
McIntyre said people who find themselves in difficult situations should first try to get to a safe location and call police right away.
The attack on the five-year-old happened about 11:20 a.m. Aug. 16 when a mother and her three children were walking along Government Street, near Herald Street. An unknown woman hit one of the children in the face without provocation on what happened to be his fifth birthday.
The woman remains at large. She is described as white, 30 to 40 years old and about five-foot-five with a slim build and dishevelled appearance.
The womane had shoulder-length brownish-blond hair, and was wearing light-coloured jeans and a carrying a brown leather bag.
Call Victoria police at 250-995-7654, extension 1, with any information or report anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).
Downtown Victoria Business Association executive director Jeff Bray said the recent incidents raise a number of issues, including the importance of keeping those involved in custody.
“This is clearly a violent individual,” he said of the latest case. “They were arrested and then released with conditions.
“The fact that these isolated, random attacks happen is concerning.”
Bray said it is also important for the province to move quickly with complex-care programs “for individuals that are struggling with mental health and/or addictions.”
“It’s a small cohort of individuals that are creating these problems and really the province needs to step up and actually deal with them.”
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps said such attacks in any downtown are “unacceptable.”
Like Bray, she said there are some people who either need more than the current system can provide or should probably be held in custody longer “rather than released onto the streets to undertake this kind of behaviour.”
