A man has been arrested after an “unprovoked” attack on homeless people in downtown Miami left two dead and two others hospitalized Thursday morning, authorities said.

Police officers identified a man accused of attacking a group of homeless people, killing two and injuring two others in Miami.

A maniac armed with a metal rod and wooden stick allegedly beat two sleeping homeless people to death and injured another homeless couple in an unprovoked pre-dawn rampage in downtown Miami, according to police.

At about 5:45 a.m., Miami Police officers responded to reports of a man armed with a stick assaulting people around North Miami Avenue and Northwest Sixth Street. The man, later identified as Brenton Clarke, 36, was arrested after a brief foot chase.

The head of the county’s homeless agency is calling on law enforcement to investigate the attacks as a hate crime.

The police said that Brenton Clarke, 36, of Long Island, N.Y., used a metal rod and a wooden stick to attack four homeless people in what they said was an unprovoked assault.

A man was arrested Thursday and charged with murder after, police say, he attacked homeless people in Miami with a metal rod and a wooden plank with nails in it, killing two and injuring two more.

MIAMI - An arrest has been made in the unprovoked attacks on the homeless in Downtown Miami that left two dead. Brenton Clarke, 36, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder and armed robbery with a deadly weapon.