A 51-year-old man police say used a metal baseball bat to try to kill a younger man in September has now also been charged with a rape and other sex crimes at the Seabreeze homeless camp in August, according to court papers.
Dennis Daniels, who has no permanent address, was charged by the Alameda County district attorney’s office Nov. 3 with forcible rape and oral copulation, both of which are felonies, among other allegations.
According to court papers, on Aug. 8, Daniels pulled a woman into a tent at the Seabreeze homeless camp and proceeded to rape and sexually batter her. The camp is located in West Berkeley on University Avenue at West Frontage Road across from the Seabreeze Market.
The woman was crying and repeatedly told Daniels “no,” police wrote, and he eventually stopped the sexual assault. The woman knew Daniels before the Seabreeze rape, police wrote, and “was fearful of what he may do to her” because of his “violent tendencies and behavior.”
Daniels was already in custody when authorities charged him in the rape case. He had been arrested in Berkeley in early September, about a month after the rape, on suspicion of using a metal bat to attack a younger man on Eighth Street in West Berkeley. The DA’s office filed attempted murder charges in that case, which is ongoing.
A video of that attack, which appears in the linked Berkeleyside story, is violent: Extreme discretion should be used before viewing.
Daniels already has felony convictions for assault with a deadly weapon (2009), robbery (2010) and attempted assault with a deadly weapon (2000), according to court papers. He was sent to prison after all three convictions and has two strikes, according to court papers.
Daniels, who is a laborer according to his jail records, is scheduled to enter a plea in the new case Nov. 20 at the East County Hall of Justice in Dublin. He is being held without bail at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin.
