SAXONBURG — A state police officer offered dramatic testimony about staring down the barrel of a loaded rifle while answering a burglar alarm at a house in Winfield Township.

“I was able to see the AR (15) pointed right at me,” Trooper Robert Gambone recounted Wednesday at a preliminary hearing for 53-year-old Richard W. Gniewkowski.

The trooper drew his own gun and ran for cover before Gniewkowski, who also aimed the semi-automatic rifle at Gambone's partner, eventually surrendered during the brief standoff April 9 at his home on Stargrille Road.

A pair of defense attorneys, however, argued their client that night did not know who was at the house in a secluded, wooded area with no outside lighting.

They also noted that no shots were fired and no one was hurt.

District Judge Sue Haggerty ordered Gniewkowski to stand trial on two counts each of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, simple assault and disorderly conduct.

Gambone testified that he and Trooper David Thompson had gone to the defendant's home shortly before midnight in response to a call for a burglar alarm there.

The officers knocked on two doors and identified themselves as police but got no response. There were no lights inside the house.

While shining his flashlight at the back glass door, Gambone said he heard Thompson yell, “Gun. He has a gun.”

Gambone noticed the defendant armed with what he described as an “assault rifle.” The gun was “pointed right at me,” the trooper told prosecutor Russ Karl, a Butler County assistant district attorney.

He guessed he was four to five feet away from the suspect.

The officers, in turn, drew their service pistols and screamed at Gniewkowski to put the rifle down, while again identifying themselves as police.

The armed suspect responded with an expletive and kept the rifle pointed in the direction of the troopers, who retreated. Thompson took up position at one corner of the house.

“I ran in zigzag motion to avoid being hit by a round,” Gambone testified. He used a shed in the side yard for cover.

All the while, the trooper said, Gniewkowski was tracking him with the rifle “as if to get a better shot.”

Thompson eventually activated the police cruiser's emergency lights and siren, and deployed the vehicle's public address system to convince the suspect to surrender.

He came out of the house, hands up, and was handcuffed.

While speaking to Gniewkowski, Gambone said he believed the defendant was “extremely impaired.”

The homeowner also asked the troopers why he was in handcuffs. Because, Gambone told him, he wouldn't put the gun down after troopers had repeatedly screamed “state police.”

Gniewkowski's response, Gambone recounted: “Anyone can say they're state police.”

Police subsequently went into the house and found Gniewkowski's Colt AR-15, which was loaded with a magazine and had a round in the chamber.

“The safety was on fire,” Gambone told Karl about finding the gun, “so all he needed to do was pull the trigger.”

On cross-examination by defense attorney Al Lindsay, the trooper acknowledged Gniewkowski had legal possession of the gun that night.

Gambone also said the defendant knew his burglar alarm had gone off, but believed it had only malfunctioned.

Following testimony, Gniewkowski's other attorney, T. Brent McCune of Pittsburgh, asked Haggerty to dismiss the aggravated assault charge.

McCune argued that since his client never pulled the trigger, it proved that he never attempted to cause serious bodily injury, an element of the crime.

Additionally, he claimed the lack of lighting prevented the defendant from recognizing the troopers at his house in the middle of the night.

Karl countered that Gniewkowski must have seen both officers “in full uniform” and their marked patrol car, and must have heard them yelling “state police” during the incident.

Gniewkowski remains free on $25,000 bail.