Cat thwarts Indianapolis home intruder with one mean bite

Jessica Hice | IndyStar

Show Caption Hide Caption Cat attacks intruder, causing him to flee Binky the cat attacked an intruder early Wednesday morning, according to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. The man fled and was later arrested.

“You got to let me in.”

A home intruder told Cynthia Kootz this as he scrambled to break into her Finley Avenue home on the south side just after midnight Wednesday.

Lucky for Kootz, her cat Binky was ready to act.

According to court records, the 42-year-old man initially walked up to Kootz's enclosed front porch and pushed through a window screen.

Kootz, watching her television from the couch at the time, heard loud banging and ran to the door.

"A bald-headed guy started kicking the door, started hollering at me," Kootz said in an interview with IndyStar. "I kept telling him, 'No, I don't know you.'"

Binky "sprung into action," Kootz said, as the man put his hand through the window screen, trying to climb inside, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Kootz said Binky bit the man's hand and latched on.

"I was shocked," Kootz exclaimed. She said Binky had never attacked anyone like that before except when her boyfriend roughhouses with her for fun.

"I will holler, 'Binky, he's hurtin' me,' and he will run and bite him somewhere and take off runnin'," Kootz said.

The man fled but was later arrested on charges of residential entry and criminal mischief and booked into the Marion County Jail.

As for Binky, he is doing fine.

"He is my hero," Kootz said, clutching the purring, gray tabby as she sat on her couch Friday afternoon. "If I could, I would give him any treat he wants."

Call IndyStar reporter Jessica Hice at (317) 444-7437. Follow her on Twitter: @jess_hice.