A former screenwriter for the television show ‘NYPD Blue’ was arrested Sunday and accused of fatally punching his poodle.

According to the New York Post, police said the writer, 51-year-old Ted Shuttleworth, is suspected of punching his dog so hard that it sustained a fatal brain injury. Shuttleworth allegedly took the dog to a veterinarian who, suspecting foul play, contacted the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. A spokesman for the ASPCA told the Post that a necropsy revealed that the small, four-pound dog, Lola, had suffered blunt force trauma to the right side of her head, resulting in brain injury and death.

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Shuttleworth was arrested at his Queens home Sunday morning, and could face up to one year in prison, the Post also reported.

Poodle image via John Leslie on Wikimedia, Creative Commons licensed