N.W.T. Mountie charged with assault

A Yellowknife RCMP constable has been charged with assault causing bodily harm, the police force has announced.

Const. Jason Muzzerall, who has five years of experience with the Mounties, is scheduled to make his first court appearance at the end of next month, officials said Friday in a news release.

The charge stems from a complaint from a 28-year-old Yellowknife man who alleges he was attacked while in police custody in April 2009.

The man, whose name police did not release, was being put in an RCMP detachment cell when an altercation took place. The man suffered a small cut to his head, according to police.

"It was not necessarily a matter of an assault, per se, where somebody is being beaten or hit, or intermediate devices, as we call them — meaning pepper spray or a baton or a Taser — was used on this man," Sgt. Brad Kaeding told CBC News Friday.

"It was just a matter of force used in the course of doing business. And in this case, the course of doing business was lodging this particular man in cells here in Yellowknife."

2nd Mountie charged

Police say Muzzerall has five years of service with the RCMP, all of which he has spent in the Northwest Territories.

Muzzerall becomes the second Yellowknife RCMP officer to face criminal charges in recent months.

The RCMP announced in June that Sgt. Larry O'Brien has been charged with theft, breach of trust and uttering a forged document, after $2,000 went missing from an evidence locker at the Yellowknife detachment. He is scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 24.

O'Brien, a former RCMP spokesman, has also been charged with uttering threats after six Yellowknife Mounties alleged he had threatened them in June.

O'Brien has been suspended with pay from the RCMP since Feb. 26. Police did not say whether Muzzerall has been suspended from the force.