SOUTH BEND — A woman was assaulted and robbed Friday morning in a downtown South Bend parking garage while she was trying to walk to work. Police are still searching for the two men responsible.

For a woman who works nearby, the incident was especially shocking. For 18 years Jacqueline Hagedorn has been working downtown, and for the most part, it's been pretty uneventful until now.

"I started freaking out because I'm in this building all by myself,” she told WSBT News.

The assault happened inside the parking garage on the corner of Wayne and St. Joseph streets. Police say the woman was walking down a stairwell shortly before 7 a.m. when she was attacked.

Police say one of the men used a razor-like object to cut the woman's face. She was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

"This one was particularly brutal,” said South Bend Police Capt. Phil Trent. “That's pretty uncharacteristic for this area."

Day or night, it's an area that draws big crowds thanks to businesses, restaurants and theaters like The Morris.

"We get over 100,000 people here in a year's time, and the Palais adds to that,” said Dennis Andrews, who works downtown. “So collectively we look at 125,000-150,000 people in a year's time visit this complex."

"You know they're going to work, they going to places from lunch, and coming back,” Hagedorn said.

Because of the high volume of traffic, police say they've already increased patrols.

"Especially on weekends we amp up our patrols just because of the crowds downtown,” Trent said. “So that'll be certainly enforced as it always is."

And Andres hopes this attack doesn't keep people from coming downtown.

"I would tell you that most times people feel very safe here,” he said. “I mean we're questioning that, we always look at that."

Police describe the suspects as two white men, with average height, and average build. They say the man responsible for the cutting was wearing a black-hooded sweatshirt, has a tattoo on his left forearm, and may have left the scene on a bike. The other suspect was wearing a dark baseball cap.

Police say there are several cameras on the outside of nearby buildings and they are carefully reviewing the footage at this time. But there was not a camera inside the stairwell where the assault happened.

The parking garage was temporarily shut down after the attack, but was reopened by 8 a.m.