A 44-year-old man hurled a brick at a father walking with a child while pushing a baby in a stroller on Capitol Hill on Sunday, a neighborhood commissioner said.

       District police said Sunday afternoon that they have a suspect in custody: Jerome Razor, who did not have a fixed address. He faces a charge of assault with a dangerous weapon, police said.

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       The attack occurred at about 10:06 a.m. in the 600 block of E Street SE, just east of Marion Park, police said. Police said Razor approached the group from behind and assaulted two of the victims with a brick before fleeing. Detectives interviewed witnesses, found Razor several blocks away and arrested him.

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       The child and adult were treated at a hospital, police said.

       K. Denise Rucker Krepp, a D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for the area that includes Capitol Hill, said she learned of the attack from another commissioner who had witnessed the attack.

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       The commissioner had heard screaming, looked outside and saw a father pushing a baby in a stroller accompanied by another toddler moving away from a person the witness described as a vagrant, who was following them with a brick, Krepp said. The father, according to the witness’s account, had been hit once with the brick when the suspect threw a brick again at the baby.

       “I ran and got towels and ice and held it on the father’s head as he tried to console the screaming baby who had a gash in its face bleeding everywhere,” the witness said in a text message that Krepp tweeted. “... really shaken. Just utterly horrific.”

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       Krepp called police, who she said told her the baby had suffered a scratch.

       She said she contacted the U.S. attorney’s office in D.C. and told prosecutors she is willing to write a community impact statement if it would help them convict the suspect. Krepp said the random attack is part of a trend of rising assaults and violent crime taking place in the District.

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       “No one should fear walking on the street with their baby because they’re going to get hit in the head with a brick,” she said.

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       According to District police records, violent crime is up 2 percent in the city this year compared with last year. Assaults with a dangerous weapon are also up 2 percent with police investigating 1,617 attacks this year. Homicides are up 11 percent this year, statistics show.

       “There are physical attacks happening now on Capitol Hill,” Krepp said. “People are not happy. This is random stuff, but the feeling is that the individuals who are committing what is essentially aggravated assault are just being arrested and they’re out the next day.”

       Razor’s friends or family could not be located. It was not known if he had obtained a lawyer.