Former 'NYPD Blue' Writer Arrested After Fatally Punching Dog in Face

Ted Shuttleworth, a one-time TV writer whose credits include a brief stint on NYPD Blue, has been arrested after punching a poodle in the face so hard it died.

our editor recommends

Appeals Court Tosses 'NYPD Blue' Nudity Fine

VH1's 'Bounce' Adds 'NYPD Blue' Actress

According to the New York Post, police arrested Shuttleworth on Saturday at his home in Sunnyside, Queens. The 51-year-old allegedly hit the dog May 29 because he was angry with the 4 1/2-pound canine.

PHOTOS: 10 Television Show Controversies

He then took the dog to see a vet. After the dog died, the vet's staff became suspicious and called the  American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which performed a necropsy.

“Lola sustained a traumatic brain injury secondary to the application of blunt force to the right side of her head at the hands of the suspect, her owner,” ASPCA spokesman Joseph Pentangelo told the Post.

Shuttleworth's wife, Isadora Monk Shuttleworth, called it “a horrible accident.”

STORY: Appeals Court Tosses 'NYPD Blue' Nudity Fine

According to the Post, Shuttleworth once worked for Steven Spielberg but now earns money reading scripts and working as an adminstrative assistant at New York University. However, IMDb.com lists his only credits as a 2000 episode of ABC's cop drama NYPD Blue and an episode of USA's 2000-01 series Cover Me: Based on the True Life of an FBI Family. (He also is credited as a production assistant on the 1990 Harrison Ford movie Presumed Innocent.)

Shuttleworth reportedly faces up to a year in prison.