A man who authorities say attacked two staffers at the Fairfax City office of Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) with a metal baseball bat Monday was involved in another violent incident shortly before the high-profile attack, asking a woman about her race and then chasing her with a bat, Fairfax County police said Tuesday.

Xuan Pham, 49, of Fairfax County approached the woman Monday morning near Maylock Lane and Point Pleasant Drive, not far from Connolly's district office and the home where Pham lived, police said. Pham asked the woman if she was White, then chased her until she retreated into her car, police said.

Pham then hit the woman's windshield with a baseball bat and ran away, police said. Video of the incident obtained by CNN shows Pham running after a screaming woman with the bat on the lawn of a home, before he retreats.

Fairfax County police said the incident happened at 10:37 a.m., and officers were dispatched at 10:41 a.m. By the time officers arrived - at 10:53 a.m., according to the Fairfax County police - Pham had already left the scene and gone to Connolly's district office, which is about five miles away in Fairfax City.

Pham has been charged with felony aggravated malicious wounding and malicious wounding in the incident in Connolly's office. He is facing hate-crime-related assault and felony destruction of property charges in the earlier incident, police said. He was scheduled to make his first appearance in Fairfax County General District Court on charges related to both incidents Tuesday, but he refused to attend his arraignment.

A video feed in the courtroom showed Pham wrapped in a green blanket in his cell at the Fairfax County jail. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for July 17.

U.S. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said there was a search warrant served on Pham's father's house Monday night by the county and the city police, to try to determine what, if any, kind of planning he might have done. He also said that Pham was not on the radar of the Capitol Police before the attack at Connolly's office.

Elsa Gunessever, who lives two doors down from Pham's family, was running errands when the chasing incident happened in her neighborhood, but returned home to a see a car with a shattered windshield parked on her street.

"When I came home from the grocery store and saw 10 police cars, my heart started pumping," she said.

Gunessever, 85, said she never met Pham, but described his parents as kind neighbors.

"At first, I got really scared because I said 'My lord. I don't know which of my neighbors are good and which are bad.' But now, I feel very sorry for the parents," she said.

Connolly said in an interview Monday that Pham entered the office and asked for him but grew agitated when he was told the congressman was not there. Pham then struck an intern - who was on her first day on the job - in the side with a baseball bat, Connolly said.

A commotion ensued, and Pham struck Connolly's outreach director on the head with the baseball bat. Another staffer, who is a retired Army sergeant, rounded up the staffers and pulled them into an office, as Pham smashed glass windows and a computer in the office, Connolly said.

Police arrived a short time later, and Connolly said they used a stun gun to subdue Pham. Fairfax City police and United States Capitol Police, who are jointly probing the incident, said they are still investigating a motive.

Connolly said the man gave no indication of a political motive for the attack and said authorities assumed mental illness may have played a role. He said that staffers had previously talked to the man on the phone and he seemed off. Pham's father said in an interview that his son was schizophrenic and has been ill since his late teens. The father said that his son had been refusing to take his medication and that he had unsuccessfully sought help for him.

Xuan Pham was charged with four felonies for assaulting a police officer and attempting to take a stun gun in an incident that occurred in January 2022, according to Fairfax County court records. An incident report asserts that Pham screamed and ran toward a police officer's cruiser, asking an officer to shoot him. After police told Pham they would be taking him to a mental health facility, the report alleges, Pham grew distressed and resisted officers' efforts to take him into custody, reaching for the gun of one of them.

The charges were later dropped. The Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney's Office said in a statement that the charges "stemmed from a mental health incident" and were not prosecuted "as part of an agreement that ensured the individual was complying with mental health services." Courts records show as of February 2022, Pham had been compliant in the agreement.

Also last year, Pham filed a lawsuit against the CIA in federal court, alleging the spy agency had been "guilty of wrongfully imprisoning me in a lower perspective based on physics called the book world."

He wrote he was entitled to be "cured" and was seeking $29 million.

Connolly said in an interview Tuesday that when he first learned that his staff members were attacked his initial reaction was "guilt."

"This guy intended me as the target and instead, he found other targets as substitutes," Connolly said. "I know that might sound weird, but you can't help but have that reaction like it should have been me, not them."

The Washington Post’s Camila DeChalus, Tom Jackman and Alice Crites contributed to this report.