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A Selkirk RCMP officer has been charged with assault after allegedly hitting a man with a pylon while the man was in police custody.

The Independent Investigation Unit (IIU), the province’s police watchdog, said Wednesday that their investigation into the Oct. 21 incident determined there were reasonable and probable grounds to believe a criminal offence occurred.

The incident, which took place in the RM of Rockwood, involved a 27-year-old man arrested for driving without a licence.

When the man was secured in the back seat of the police cruiser, he proceeded – as IIU said last year – to blow “mucus and spit all over the back seat.”

The officer then allegedly struck him with a pylon that was in the vehicle. The man wasn’t hurt.

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IIU investigators told Cst. Paul Lacoursiere of the Selkirk Traffic Services Tuesday that he was being charged.

Lacoursiere will appear in Provincial Court this June in Selkirk.

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