A handyman was found guilty of beating an older tenant, leading to his death, Washington, DC, officials said.

Clifton Browne, 57, was making repairs on a home in September 2021 when the reported attack occurred, according to a Jan. 18 statement from the US Attorney’s Office for Washington, DC, which cited trial evidence.

An attorney for Browne could not immediately be reached for comment by McClatchy News.

While standing outside the home’s basement apartment, Browne began arguing with the tenant, 75-year-old Luther Brooks, through the closed door, officials said.

Brooks eventually flung open the door, and struck Browne with a stick, knocking him to the ground, officials said.

Browne then purportedly “charged at” Brooks and beat him until he was “babbling incoherently,” officials said.

Afterward, officials allege Browne dragged him outside and “dumped him in a concrete stairwell,” where, unable to sit up, he fell back and injured his head on the concrete.

Brooks was transported to the George Washington University Hospital with a fractured skull and ribs and lost consciousness hours later, the attorney’s office said. He was taken off life support less than two weeks later, and he died.

An autopsy revealed Brooks had died from blunt force trauma, and his death was ruled a homicide, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.

At Browne’s trial, a medical expert confirmed that Brooks’ fractured ribs inhibited his breathing, resulting in his death, according to the DC Witness, a crime reporting publication.

A neighbor who witnessed the attack told the jury she saw “someone holding a large object and swinging it over his head repeatedly,” the outlet reported. “Somebody was very angry, cussing and very loud,” she said.

The jury found Browne guilty of voluntary manslaughter on Jan. 18, officials said. He is scheduled for a sentencing hearing on May 5.

Luther Brooks was an avid photographer and Vietnam veteran, according to an online obituary.

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As the annual Carnaval San Francisco parade came up 24th Street in the Mission District, the energy level always swelled with the appearance of Ginga Brasil — a costumed performance troupe of more than 100 men, women and children, a drum corps and a band on a truck, all dancing and swaying to the samba.

Off to the side, in her own unique costume, with her arms in constant motion as she conducted the dancers, what the troupe’s artistic director, Conceição Damasceno, a dance instructor and choreographer, costume designer and float decorator, community leader and cultural ambassador for all things Brazilian.

Damasceno, who last walked the mile-plus route at Carnaval in 2017 and was waving from a float a year later, had long suffered from lupus, an autoimmune disease. A long decline finally ended on April 24, when Damasceno died at her home in North Oakland, said her husband Nick Harvey. she was 61

“One of her greatest gifts was that she could introduce (Brazilian) dance and the culture to Americans,” said Harvey. “She taught people to find inner happiness in their own creative movement and comfort in their own bodies.”

As a bookend to Carnaval on Memorial Day weekend, Damasceno created and directed the SF Bay Brazilian Day/Lavagem Festival, which folds a 45-minute sacred ceremony into an 8-hour party during Labor Day weekend in Berkeley.

Ginga Brasil dances year-round at street fairs and parties centered around Casa de Cultura, a warehouse in West Berkeley connected to a nonprofit arts foundation called BrasArte. Children start in a program called “Borboletas” (Butterflies). Parents often start out watching the kids before they, too, are absorbed in the spirit of it and enroll in classes.

Damasceno appreciated students who started with nothing. She emigrated from the Brazilian state of Bahia in 1985 with $50 to her name. As the youngest of 12 children whose father died when she was just a few months old, Damasceno was raised amid poverty and hunger in a small town without electricity.

To entertain herself she “watched shadows by candlelight at night and butterflies in the daytime to imitate the movement,” Harvey said. An Englishman, he was on a post-collegiate walkabout when he met Damasceno in Fort Lauderdale in 1985. Two years later, they visited San Francisco and decided to move there.

She opened her dance studio in Berkeley in 1998, and founded BrasArte two years later as a nonprofit in order to preserve authentic Brazilian culture and to facilitate cultural exchange. Those two organizations were merged into Casa de Cultura, the Brazilian cultural center and dance studio still operating in Berkeley.

“I hope I help people see that Brazil is not just about beautiful women in bikinis and feathers,” she told The Chronicle in an interview before Carnaval, in the late 1990s. “It represents a whole attitude of being happy and relaxed — and Americans need to be relaxed.”

Interest in Brazilian culture hit a frenzy in 1994 when Stanford Stadium was one of the venues for the soccer World Cup. The Brazilian team stayed in Los Altos and played several games en route to winning the Cup at the Rose Bowl.

Graphic designer Anne-Marie Praetzel of Berkeley had been a soccer player and seen the games at Stanford and hit the spontaneous street parties afterwards. At one soirée she saw a flyer on a telephone pole advertising a Samba class conveniently located at Bahia Brazil, a bar in San Francisco.

She’d never taken a dance class before and was curious. “In comes this very graceful and stunningly beautiful woman, long arms and legs with a shock of black, wild hair,” Praetzel said. “Her movements were so mezmerizingly beautiful that I was hooked instantly.”

Praetzel ended up studying under Damasceno for 17 years. There was much to learn as Damasceno’s choreography incorporated the flight of birds and the movement of women doing laundry. Praetzel ended up performing in costume during several Carnaval parades.

“Samba is a very difficult dance to do unless you grew up doing it,” Praetzel said. “But (Damasceno) made it so fun and so addictive that I just kept going and going until I got it, eventually.”

There was more to it than Samba. There were parties at Damasceno’s home, and larger street parties at Casa de Cultura. Something was always happening with Ginga Brasil.

“There was a very warm and welcoming vibe to it,” Praetzel said. “There were old people, young people, kids. It was very inclusive. All ages and sizes of people with varying abilities to dance were welcome at her events and her classes.”

Damasceno was born Feb. 1, 1961 in Alagoinhas, a city in Bahia. The family moved to the capital city of Salvador when she was 9, and she began studying folkloric dance traditions. After migrating to Miami and then San Francisco, Damasceno made her first appearance in Carnaval in 1988.

“Her genius is something she brought from Brazil, which is the entire conceptualization of a Carnaval contingent,” said Aida Salazar, an Oakland writer who included Damasceno in her illustrated children’s book “In the Spirit of a Dream: 13 Stories of American Immigrants of colour.”

“She would be there with her glowing smile and her big hair flowing in the wind with the most graceful arms you’ve ever seen, moving along and flowing and directing.”

Salazar became enthralled when she and her husband, musician John Santos, brought their daughter Avelina Santos, then 7, to a performance produced by Damasceno at the Casa de Cultura.

Afterward Damasceno approached them and suggested Avelina was the right age for the summer day camp offered at the Casa. That was the beginning of five years of dancing and performing for Avelina, followed by her younger brother Joao. Then their mother became a producer of the Carnaval Ball, The Brazilian Day Festival, and Yemanja Arts Festival, all affiliated with BrasArte.

“The Brazilian people were always there but it was also white, Black and Asian people who supported all of their activities,” said Salazar. “She really believed that the arts were a bridge for peace and understanding.”

The 2018 Carnaval, which was Damasceno’s last, also marked a first. Her daughter, Tainah Damasceno, was crowned the queen of that same parade. Since then she has taken over for her mother as artistic director of BrasArte, the nonprofit umbrella which includes the dance school, various festivals and stage shows, and all forms of outreach.

Carnaval San Francisco returns after a two-year absence on May 29. Ginga Brasil will be there in costume, 60 or 70 strong, dancing and swaying the samba as if their founder were still there beside them.

“When I think of my mother, I think of the sun. Everyone and everything was drawn to her,’ said Tainah. “Her willpower and sincerity pulled people in and generated a community of love that will long outlast her short stay here on earth.”

In addition to her husband and daughter, both of Oakland, survivors include sisters Lourdes Damasceno and Rita Damasceno, also of Oakland, Antonia Damasceno of Rivarolo, Italy, and Neuza Damasceno of Salvador, Brazil; and a brother, Magno Damasceno, also of Salvador.

Tax deductible donations in her honor may be made to BrasArte, 1901 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, CA, 94702.

Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SamWhitingSF

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The City College of San Francisco is the new head of state, but in a familiar position in football with the California Community College Athletic Association, finishing the regular season game with a perfect 10-0 record. The Rams took six first places and a total of 222 points in this week’s JC Athletic Bureau coach survey after hosting the former No. 1 College of San Mateo, 31-27, in Saturday’s Bay 6 League final. CCSF DB Murvin Kenion III intercepted a host’s CSM pass on their own 30-yard line with 59 seconds to go to thwart the Bulldogs’ potential game win and a league five peat in front of an SRO crowd of 5,300 and a national cable to prevent television audiences.

Ventura College remains # 2 with 217 points, leading SoCal teams as they head to the state regional games on November 27th. Although there will be a handful of catch-up games on November 20, the teams appear to be seeded in the state playoff field. Northern Calif .: No. 9 American River (6-4) at CCSF (10-0) and No. 7 Fresno CC (8-2) at No. 4 San Mateo (9-1), the wildcard. 5 Riverside CC (8-2) and Wildcard # 6 College of the Canyons (7-2) – but pairings will not be set until final power rankings are established after the makeup games on November 20th. Playoff / Bowl Committees will meet on November 21st.

CCSF has won a record seven CCCAA football championships. Riverside defeated San Mateo in the 2019 state title game.

Rk. College record points. PR

2. Ventura [3] 10-0 217 2

3. Golden West * 10-0 206 4

5. Riverside CC 8-2 180 6

9. American River 6-4 145 12

13. Allan Hancock 5-3 118 15

14. Diablo Valley 6-4 93 19

15. San Diego Mesa 6-3 89 16

17. Mt. San Antonio 6-3 73 10

19. Spring flow 9-0 56 20

21t. East Los Angeles 5-5 43 17

23. Contra Costa 8-1 32 24

24t. Pasadena CC 8-2 19 No.

Others include: Santa Ana 18; Mount San Jacinto 15; Antelope. Valley 8; Santa Barbara CC & Shasta 7; Citrus fruits & sequoias 6.

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South San Francisco police arrested Robert Allen Midell Jr. Monday night for allegedly beating up a receptionist at Hotel V on South Airport Boulevard in South San Francisco, the San Mateo County Attorney’s Office said.

The 22-year-old Midell allegedly attacked the employee with a box cutter and pens, resulting in injuries to the employee’s face and numerous bite and stab wounds on his chest and arm, according to prosecutors. Police responded to Hotel V at 8:15 p.m. after receiving the call. Police found Midell on top of the clerk in the clerk area and the officers tried to pull him away from the clerk. He reportedly continued his attack despite being hit by a baton and taser. Midell finally released the clerk after being sprayed with pepper. Prosecutors had no motive for starting the alleged attack, despite the victim previously evicting Midell for failing to pay his bill. Midell has been charged with suspected attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, break-in into residential areas and meddling with police officers, according to prosecutors.

The Private Defender program has been named Midell. The case continued through November 19 at 1:30 p.m. to see a designated attorney, file a motion, and start the preliminary hearing. Midell is on bail for $ 500,000.

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