Four police officers testified about the morning they arrested Matthew Sherwin two years ago, tackling and tasering him in the driveway of a Fort Langley home.

Sherwin was in New Westminster Supreme Court Thursday for a trial on charges of aggravated assault, assaulting a police officer while resisting arrest, break and enter, and possession of stolen property.

Just before 4:30 a.m. on April 6, 2010, a neighbour noticed two men next door, apparently checking out windows and vents.

The neighbour testified that she called the police, and the first cars began arriving within about 10 minutes.

Const. Chad Gorman and Const. Christa Ballard were the first two officers to arrive.

“I could hear smashing, banging, and someone yelling,” said Ballard.

The two officers called for backup, and Constables Terry Nikopoulos and Veronica Steiger took up positions at the front of the house, and in a yard to one side, respectively.

Gorman headed around to the back yard, and was soon confronted by a large man, later identified as Sherwin, exiting the back door.

Sherwin, about 6’4” and well over 200 pounds, dropped a baseball bat on the ground beside him when Gorman and Ballard pointed their guns at him.

“His eyes were very large, he appeared very wild looking,” said Ballard. The man didn’t say any words, and he didn’t respond to commands to put up his hands or get down on the ground.

“He was not responding at all, he was making kind of garbling noises,” Gorman said..

The suspect tossed a sheathed knife underhanded at Gorman, striking the officer’s gun hand and pistol, but not hurting him.

The man then made a lumbering run for it, heading around a carport and then back down the driveway toward the front of the home, the officers testified. Ballard and Gorman gave chase.

Nikopoulos, from near the front of the house, grabbed the suspect and was dragged along by the larger man, before Gorman and Ballard caught up.

“We all tackled him at the same time, and we landed in a heap on the ground,” Ballard testified.

With three officers on top of him, Sherwin kept trying to get up, managing to rise to all fours even with Nikopoulos on his legs and other officers on his back and arms.

Under cross examination, Nikopoulos said Sherwin was displaying “superhuman strength.”

Steiger, who had run to the struggle from the yard next door, zapped the large man with a Taser, and he stopped struggling. The officers cuffed him and walked him to a car.

Defence lawyer Paul McMurray asked Gorman if Sherwin had displayed mood swings, and he agreed Sherwin had been aggressive at first, then crying in the squad car and more coherent later at the Langley RCMP headquarters.

Most of the officers wrote in their reports that Sherwin had appeared to be high on drugs.

After Sherwin had been cuffed, a man came outside the door covered in blood, Mikopoulos testified.

The homeowner was taken to hospital, released later and then readmitted. He died about a month after the attack, but Sherwin has not been charged with causing his death.

A statement from the victim was to be read into evidence later, said Crown prosecutor Donna Ballyk.

The trial was expected to last no more than two days.