A 31-year-old Oak Harbor man who got tasered on the buttocks while fighting a police officer pleaded not guilty to criminal charges last week, court documents state.

Prosecutor charged Travis McKinney is Island County Superior Court Feb. 24 with the third-degree assault of a police officer and resisting arrest.

Oak Harbor Police Officer Larry Ferguson responded to the report of a disorderly person at the Bayside Lounge at about 9 p.m. on Jan. 18. An employee said that a customer, later identified as McKinney, had used foul language and threatened to kill him, the report states.

The employee asked the officer to “trespass” McKinney from the business, meaning that McKinney wouldn’t be allowed to return. Ferguson drove around and found McKinney at Windjammer Park.

Ferguson called McKinney over to his patrol car, saying that he would issue him a written warning and then he could go free. But McKinney got upset, threatened to harm the officer and refused to go to the car, Ferguson wrote.

When Ferguson grabbed him by the arm, McKinney punched the officer in the chest three times, the report states. Ferguson shot his taser gun at him, but one of the probes didn’t make contact.

Ferguson wrote that he got McKinney on the ground, but the suspect continued to resist until the officer zapped him with the taser.

“I then made a ‘contact’ tase in his right buttocks area which had an immediate and positive response as I told him to stop resisting and put his hands behind his back,” Ferguson wrote.

Ferguson arrested McKinney and brought him to the police department. The officer could detect an odor of intoxicants on McKinney’s breath, the report states.

McKinney apologized for punching the officer, but said he didn’t know who Ferguson was and he was scared, the police report indicates.

If convicted of the charge, McKinney could face from one to three months in jail.