Four homeless men are dead and one has been injured in a violent killing spree on the streets of New York City.
Reports say the homeless men were killed in their sleep on Manhattan's Lower East Side, in the city's Chinatown district, shortly before 2am today local-time.
The NYPD confirmed four men are dead and a 24-year-old suspect found carrying a 'metal object' is in custody.
CBS New York reports police believe the victims were rough sleepers attacked in their sleep with an object resembling a metal pipe.
The suspect is reportedly also homeless.
An NYPD spokesman described the metal object as similar to a construction stud and about 3ft-long. the New York Times reports.
He told the newspaper police have "tentative" IDs for the victims, who were all believed to be homeless.
A statement from the NYPD said officers responding to reports of an assault found one man dead and another injured in Chinatown. They then discovered three more men dead about three blocks away.
All five men had head wounds.
The force said police had responded to the 911 call of an assault on progress around 1.49am in the Chinatown area of Manhattan's Bowery neighbourhood.
They found the first adult male unconscious with severe trauma to the head. He was later pronounced dead at the scene.
A second victim, age 49, was found at the same location with head trauma.
He was taken to hospital and remains in a critical condition.
Upon a canvass of the area, officers discovered a second crime scene a few blocks south.
They found three more unidentified men dead with signs of head trauma on East Broadway.
Two of the men were found outside 2 East Broadway and the third man outside 17 Broadway, the NYPD said.
Paramedics pronounced all three dead at the scene, the force confirmed.
A 24-year-old suspect was arrested in the vicinity of the first call-out with a metal object in his possession, the NYPD said.
The injured man remains at New York Downtown Hospital in a critical condition, the force said.
