A Kentucky man is accused of doing the unthinkable: setting fire to a home in Scottsville while animals were still trapped inside. According to the Allen County-Scottsville Crime Task Force, Thomas Dilley, 48, had already been accused of threatening to burn the residence before investigators say multiple fires were deliberately started inside it. Firefighters with the Scottsville Fire Department arrived in time to put out the flames and pull the animals to safety, but they should never have been in danger in the first place.

Dilley now faces a second-degree arson charge, and investigators have said additional animal cruelty charges are expected. That's a start, but it's not enough. When someone is willing to set a home on fire with living creatures inside, the consequences need to match the danger created. Animals have no way to escape a burning building on their own, and using fire as a weapon or a threat puts every living thing inside a home, human or animal, at risk of death.

The Allen County Commonwealth's Attorney's Office has the power to make sure this case is prosecuted to the fullest extent the law allows, including pursuing every animal cruelty charge investigators uncover. Kentucky families and animal lovers alike deserve to know that arson used to terrorize a household, and endanger the animals inside it, will be treated with the seriousness it demands.

Sign this petition to demand the Allen County Commonwealth's Attorney's Office pursue full charges against Thomas Dilley, including all applicable animal cruelty counts, before another act of arson puts more lives at risk.