Detectives were searching on Wednesday for a 25-year-old man in connection with a series of attacks on Asian women in Manhattan over the last week.
Relatives of the man, who was identified by friends and associates as Tyrelle D. Shaw, contacted the police after seeing surveillance video released after the most recent attack on Monday, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing.
Mr. Shaw’s friends and relatives became increasingly concerned after a post appeared on his blog describing his infatuation with Asian women, claiming a connection to the crimes and outlining his intention to end his life.
“I never wanted to reach the conclusion that Asian women would never take me serious, because of the color of my skin,” read the post attributed to Mr. Shaw, who is black. “Inform N.Y.P.D. they could stop searching for me because I’m going to commit suicide.”
The police were aware of the post and had followed up on some of the specific locations mentioned, the official said. As of late Wednesday, Mr. Shaw, an artist who has posted about creating bow ties out of unconventional materials, had yet to be found.
“He’s not known to be living anywhere,” the official said, adding that detectives were working to piece together family connections to determine where Mr. Shaw could be.
The attacks, which are being investigated as possible hate crimes, began last Wednesday when a man struck a 35-year-old woman in the face with a hard object in a plastic bag outside 155 Grand Street in Chinatown, after she rebuffed his attempts to talk with her, the police said.
Roughly four hours later, a man struck a 29-year-old woman in the face with a white plastic bag that contained a hard object while she stood on the corner of East 30th Street and Park Avenue South, the police said.
On Friday, a third woman, walking near 60th Street and Second Avenue around 12:25 a.m., was attacked by a man swinging a hard object in a white plastic bag, the police said.
“All Asian girls don’t talk to me,” the man said, according to the police, just before hitting her.
The most recent attack occurred on Monday around 4 p.m. at the Paragon II Cleaners on Mulberry Street in Chinatown. A man pressed his smartphone to the glass storefront, drawing the attention of a 41-year-old woman working at the counter and a seamstress. The phone bore a vulgar message in Chinese about women.
The woman at the counter told the man to leave, the seamstress later recalled. The man left, but returned about 20 minutes later carrying a plastic bag and entered the dry-cleaning shop.
As the woman at the counter escorted him outside, the police said, he struck her in the face and fled.