Urbana man accused of beating cat nearly to death pleads not guilty

Police shot cat to put it out of its misery, suspect allegedly claimed he thought it was a raccoon.

Credit: DaytonDailyNews

An Urbana man accused of beating a cat so badly officers had to shoot it to stop its suffering has pleaded not guilty in court.

Darius Bledsoe, 69, appeared in Champaign County Municipal Court on Tuesday morning on a misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty.

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His bond was set at $750. The judge also ordered that Bledsoe have no contact with his neighbor, to not drink alcohol and to not have live traps at his home. Bledsoe declined to comment.

The cat’s owners want him to be charged with a felony.

“Yes, Tate was just a cat but he was also part of our family,” owner Rhiannon Brown said. “And I don’t feel that this individual has any remorse for what he has done.”

The cat, named Tate, belonged to Brown’s 13-year-old daughter, Trysten Humble.

“He was one of my first ever pets and I loved him dearly,” Humble said. “…I just cannot believe that someone could beat a defenseless kitten to where they’re nearly dead.”

Local animal lovers have showed Brown support online and a couple showed up to court.

“It’s going to push the prosecutors as well as the judge to make sure that it’s not just a slap on the wrist,” Brown said.

She wants to make sure this doesn’t happen to another animal, she said.

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Officers were called to the 200 block of West Water Street on July 25 on the report of a man beating a cat.

Bledsoe told officers he had been having problems with cats damaging his front porch, according to a narrative from the Urbana Police Department. He allegedly said he believed the animal on his porch was a raccoon and was worried it was diseased, the report says.

A witness reportedly called out to Bledsoe and asked if the animal was a cat.

“According to the witness, Bledsoe replied, ‘No. It’s a raccoon. No, wait. It’s a bunny rabbit,’ in what the witness described as a sarcastic tone,” the report alleges.

He told officers he “picked the animal up and flung it over a fence at the back of his property,” according to the report.

An officer shot the cat, the report says, to put it, “out of its great suffering.”

Bledsoe has no previous criminal charges and a pre-trial hearing in his case was set for Aug. 16.

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