Waco, Texas — Baylor suspended two baseball players charged with shooting, decapitating and skinning a stray cat.
Pitcher Derek Brehm and outfielder Clint Bowers were indefinitely suspended by head baseball coach Steve Smith.
Bowers, left, and Brehm, right.
"After reviewing this matter further, I feel this is the appropriate course of action," said Smith, whose team plays Kansas today at Hoglund Ballpark.
"What Derek and Clint are charged with is unacceptable conduct for a Baylor baseball player. They are both being held accountable for their behavior."
Smith has asked Baylor administrators to include professional counseling as part of any disciplinary action taken against the athletes.
The suspensions came after animal welfare groups asked the university to expel or suspend the players for abusing a cat named Queso.
Brehm and Bowers were arrested March 9 on animal cruelty charges after police found the head of a skinned cat in the back of Bowers' vehicle.
The arrest came after officers responded to a report of a gunshots around 4 a.m. near a restaurant.
Restaurant manager Michelle Crane said the cat hung around the eatery's parking lot so much that workers named her Queso, which is "cheese" in Spanish.
Crane said the late shift manager called the police after an employee saw two men pick up the cat and then heard gunshots.
"What they did was just cruel," Crane told the Waco Tribune-Herald. "Did they have nothing better to do at 4 o'clock at night?"
The Waco Humane Society and Fuzzy Friends Rescue, a Waco animal shelter, had urged the school to punish the players.
"It's an atrocity," said Kathie Robnett, president of Fuzzy Friends Animal Rescue. "It's against everything we stand for. It's time for America to wake up and realize that athletes are not gods who should live by a different set of rules."
Baylor spokesman Larry Brumley said an investigation is continuing and officials will meet with the students before taking further disciplinary action.
Brehm, a sophomore from San Antonio East Central, was a three-time All-State pitcher. Bowers, a junior from Robinson High School, previously attended McLennan Community College.
Brehm and Bowers each face up to one year in jail and a $4,000 fine if convicted of the cruelty to animals charge, a misdemeanor.
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