Weekend incidents include near drowning, stabbing

Investigators still had no suspect Tuesday in a weekend homicide in Muleshoe, Chief Brian Frieda said.

The slaying headlined a busy holiday weekend for area police that included a stabbing in a crowded park and a near drowning.

Rolando Sauceda was pronounced dead at Muleshoe Area Medical Center just after 4 a.m. (CDT) Sunday.

Frieda said police responded to a residential area in the 500 block of West Avenue B for a report of shots fired and found Sauceda outside.

Texas Rangers are assisting Muleshoe police in the investigation, Frieda said.

In other weekend incidents:

• Around 1 p.m. Saturday, rescue personnel were called to Ned Houk Park north of Clovis for a report of a possible drowning.

According to family friend David Brown, 16-month-old Andrew Barnett is recovering in a Lubbock hospital and was conscious and being weaned off of a respirator Tuesday afternoon.

Brown said the boy was at the park with a group when his mother noticed him missing from the picnic area.

The boy’s older brother found the toddler floating in the water about five feet from the shore of a lake in the park and a family friend retrieved him from the water.

Witnesses told police an unidentified woman performed CPR on the child until responders arrived.

Brown, who called 911 from his cell phone when the child was discovered, said Andrew wasn’t breathing and his lips were purple.

“No one heard or saw anything,” he said. “I’m just praising God I had my cell phone.”

Brown said the boy’s prognosis is good, although there is some swelling of his brain, the effects of which won’t be known immediately.

Andrew is expected to be hospitalized for up to two weeks, he said.

• On Sunday, a 26-year-old Clovis man stabbed following the community fireworks display at Greene Acres Park was not seriously injured, according to police.

Carlos Lopez was transported to Plains Regional Medical Center for treatment, police Capt. Patrick Whitney reported in an e-mail.

Police were called to the west side of Greene Acres Park just after 10 p.m. Sunday for a report of a stabbing victim, records show.

“(Lopez’) ‘girth’ was thicker than the knife blade used, so he was not severely injured by the stabbing,” Whitney said in his e-mail.

Whitney said Lopez is not cooperating with police and it is believed he knows who stabbed him.