SPLENDORA – Splendora police said a man is facing a charge of injury to a child following an incident near some baseball and softball fields off Ipes Road over the weekend.
Chief Wally Wieghat said 49-year-old Josh-Allen Rabenold approached a 13-year-old boy near the fields on Saturday, and the boy agreed to throw a ball back and forth for a short time, but then wanted to stop.
“At that time when he started to walk off, the man grabbed him by the back of the neck, squeezed his neck real hard, and said, ‘No, let’s keep playing ball.’ And then he said no, and basically screamed and called for his grandmother,” the chief said.
Investigators said the man walked off after the grandmother intervened. The chief believes the man was drunk and had apparently come to the park after some kind of disturbance with his wife.
“We assume this incident with the child was just [an] unexpected occurrence of too much alcohol and probably him still angry from the disturbance he had with his wife,” Wieghat said.
Police said the boy had some pain and soreness but was ok.
Some people at the fields who spoke with KPRC 2 had already heard about the allegations.
“Things like that don’t normally happen up here,” said Samantha Anderson, a parent. “Everybody kinds of knows each other. (It’s a) small town so it was a little surprising to hear about.”
Police said they were initially dispatched to the fields for a suspicious male reportedly “rubbing up on people.”
The chief said there was a tournament taking place at multiple fields over the weekend.
“It’s a pretty quiet park,” Wieghat said. “It’s a good, safe place to be. We have a strong police presence there and it’s just a sad incident the way this thing happened.”
The suspect was arrested and taken to jail but is currently out on $3,000 bond, according to the chief.