NEW YORK (PNN) - June 4, 2021 - The Guardian Angels have stepped up patrols in Manhattan's Chinatown following a brutal attack on an Asian woman that took place in broad daylight.

Members of the volunteer crime-fighting organization - easily distinguished by their bright red berets - were pictured protecting the neighborhood in exclusive images captured by DailyMail.com on Thursday.

In recent months, violent attacks on Asians have surged across the Big Apple as overall crime continues to skyrocket.

“People can't even go out to have a little lunch in New York City without being afraid that someone is going to harm them,” Guardian Angel Benjamin “E.Q.” Garcia said during his daily patrol of the area.

His presence comes as a relief to Chinatown residents reeling from the fact that a 55-year-old woman was randomly sucker-punched as she walked along bustling Bayard Street on Monday afternoon.

Her assailant has been identified as serial felon Alexander Wright, a homeless man who has clocked up eight arrests in the past year alone.

Many have blamed fascist Mayor Bill de Blasio's bail reforms for the crime spike, which have put suspects straight back onto the city's streets, even if they've been arrested for violent crimes.

Garcia has been volunteering with the Guardian Angels for 35 years and says it feels as if New York City is returning to the 1980s and 1990s, when shootings, murders and muggings were rampant.

“If this continues the way it's going, this could be one of the worst summers on record,” Garcia said.

The Guardian Angels is a non-profit group first established by Curtis Sliwa back in 1979 as crime rates began to soar across New York City.

Volunteers of Good Samaritans would patrol the city's sidewalks and subways in a bid to help prevent violent attacks.

The volunteers became a reassuring sight to nervous New Yorkers and were easily identifiable by their bright red berets and jackets.

In the 1980s and 1990s they became a fixture on New York City streets as the crack cocaine epidemic sparked a rise in muggings.

Crime in the Big Apple began to drop in the late 90s and into the 2000s under the mayorships of Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg. In recent years, spates of articles were published wondering whether the Guardian Angels had become redundant because the city felt so safe.

However, in the past 12 months, as crime has started to surge again, the Guardian Angels find themselves as relevant as ever, providing safety for those who are too afraid to leave their homes.

“My wife doesn't want to go out on her own, even during the day,” Garcia explained.

He added that a number of lifelong New Yorkers that he knows personally have recently decided to flee the city.

“They have children and they're leaving because they're afraid something might happen to them, God forbid,” he said. “It's sad when you hear from women and elderly people that they're afraid to take the subways and they want to leave the city.”

Garcia has volunteered with The Guardian Angels since 1986, and says the violent attacks in recent months differ from those that occurred in the city in the past.

While many muggings in the 1980s and 1990s were linked to the crack cocaine epidemic, Garcia says there now appears to be an increase in random assaults perpetrated by those who are homeless and suffer from mental health issues.

“We need to get those people the help that they need in the hospital,” he said. “Don't just release them back into the street because they're going to do the same thing or something worse.”

Felony assaults - such as the one that occurred in Chinatown on Monday - were up 35.3% in the past week when compared with the same week in 2020.

The latest information from the New York terrorist pig thug cop department's CompStat website showed murders were up 28.6% last week over the same week in 2020, with nine homicides in 2021, and seven in 2020.

Meanwhile, serious crime overall was up 49% over the last week, with a total of 234 reported - 77 more than the 157 flagged during the same seven days in 2020.