A cat in Indianapolis was found bleeding and missing patches of fur after what court documents describe as a beating by her owner’s boyfriend. The man has now been charged. The Marion County Prosecutor’s Office should pursue this case in full and refuse to let it be quietly reduced to a minor offense.

On May 5, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD) officers and Indianapolis Animal Care Services (IACS) answered an animal abuse call at an apartment on the city’s northwest side. The cat’s owner showed officers a text from her boyfriend. “I just beat your cat again. She can’t walk. We’re done,” he wrote, according to court documents reported by journalist Zachary Jones. The word “again” suggests this may not have been the first time.

The owner later told detectives he was angry that the cat had been having accidents at home, and that he sent her photos of the animal after hurting it, according to the documents. About two weeks after the first call, the man filed a theft report blaming the cat’s injuries on a stranger he had let inside. He told detectives a veterinarian advised putting the cat down. That theft report is now alleged to be fake.

Pet owners, animal lovers and anyone who believes in basic decency can agree: an animal that cannot speak for itself deserves a justice system that speaks up for it. The man is presumed innocent, and a court must decide the facts. But prosecutors decide how hard to fight. A plea deal that drops the cruelty charges would send the wrong message to every abuser in Marion County.

Sign the petition to urge the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office to pursue every charge in this case, before it fades from the headlines.