Two Asian women stabbed in Calif.

Two Asian women were standing at a bus stop in downtown San Francisco on Tuesday evening when a man approached, stabbed them both and then calmly strolled away.

“He walked away like nothing happened, like Sunday morning,” Patricia Lee, who was working at a flower stand near the attack, told KGO-TV.

Two hours later, San Francisco police arrested a 54-year-old man in the attack, which sent both victims to the hospital, according to San Francisco police. One victim, an 85-year-old woman, was taken to San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center to undergo surgery.

“Disgusting and horrific attack on Market St. this afternoon of two Asian seniors,” San Francisco District 6 Supervisor Matt Haney said in a statement on Twitter. “Nothing more sickening than stabbing an 85-year-old woman while she waits for the bus. Horrific.”

Police said Tuesday that a motive has not yet been determined and told local media that officers are still investigating to determine whether hate crime charges should be brought in the case. Authorities on Wednesday identified the suspect as Patrick Thompson of San Francisco. He has been booked into the San Francisco County Jail on two charges of attempted murder and elder abuse, police said.

Authorities have not publicly identified the victims, but KPIX said one was Chui Fong Eng, 85. Her grandson Drew Eng told the station that she had surgery after being stabbed “through the arm and into the chest” after grocery shopping in Chinatown. In her 50 years in San Francisco, he said, she had never experienced anything like what happened Tuesday.

“You just don’t think it’s going to happen so close to home until it does,” he said, according to KPIX. “So you just got to be super aware of your loved ones.”

The attack comes on the heels of dozens of similar incidents across the United States, where Asian people have been brutally attacked in New York, California’s Bay Area, Atlanta and other places.

Anti-Asian incidents increased in 2020 as politicians, including then-president Donald Trump, used terms such as “Kung Flu” and “Chinese virus” to refer to the coronavirus pandemic. Many aggressors who have targeted Asian individuals in the United States have used slurs and derogatory language, sometimes connected to the pandemic.

“We will not tolerate brutal attacks like this,” San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin said in a statement.