Man arrested, charged with assault

CLOVIS — The bladed weapons were reported first as two large kitchen knives, then a sword and dagger.

Police responded to five south Clovis locations in a span of as many hours Sunday morning before arresting a man armed with what they described as “a large knife made out of a table leg with an approximately foot long blade.”

Jake Lopez, 46, known to some in the neighborhood as “Joey,” was charged with assault to commit a violent felony and misdemeanor attempt to commit extreme cruelty to animals. He remained in custody Tuesday without bond pending a court hearing next week.

The first incident was reported just before 9 a.m. Sunday, when a woman on the 300 block of Delores Drive said a man “dressed in all black with blood on his right hand” was “attempting to stab her dogs through her fence and coming into her yard by jumping over the fence,” according to a criminal complaint.

The caller told police that Lopez carried two large kitchen knives and “started yelling at her telling her... ‘I’m going to come back and kill you all, I don’t care where they put me, I’m going to keep coming back until I kill you all’,” records show.

Lopez allegedly “fled east towards the trailer next to (the original caller)” after unsuccessfully trying “to stab her dogs in order to get past them.” A neighbor told police the same.

An hour after the first call, a second caller on the 900 block of Piersall Avenue told police that a man matching Lopez’s description “was threatening the caller’s mother.” Ninety minutes after that a resident on the 1900 block of Howard Street also reported a man matching Lopez’s description in front of their house “talking to himself.”

Police then answered a call around 1:30 p.m. to reports of a man with “a dagger and a sword” near the 300 block of Dawn Loop. Lopez was ultimately located near the 200 block of Brady Avenue and booked in the Curry County jail that afternoon. On Monday he entered no plea to the two charges ensuing.

His next court date is scheduled for Oct. 10, according to court records.

Lopez is conditionally appointed a public defender but a specific attorney was not yet identified in court records as of Tuesday.