SOUTH POINT — A West Virginia man was arrested and charged with felonious assault and attempted murder after he stabbed South Point Elementary School principal Bill Christian on Thursday afternoon.

According to South Point Police Chief Chris Majher, an altercation began when Joshua Collins, of Huntington, West Virginia, was attempting to get his child out of school early.

He became agitated and Christian came out to speak to him in the lobby, which is secured by locked doors.

“Bill Christian came out to talk to him and deescalate his, what I guess to them seem to be his angry attitude,” the chief said. “Somewhere in that conversation, things turned south and when Mr. Christian turned, the suspect began attacking him with an edged weapon to the back of the head, the back of neck and into his back.”

Majher said Christian had multiple lacerations and at some point, glass leading into the school was broken as the two men fought and Collins chased Christian around the lobby.

Christian got out of the lobby and retreated to his office where he was found by staff.

Collins was in the lobby when a police officer arrived a minute or two after being called and was able to subdue Collins and get him into the back of a police cruiser.

EMS arrived to take care of Christian and Majher said he was still lucid when he talked to him.

Majher said he did not know the current condition of Christian but he had talked to the EMS crew that transported him to the hospital and they were able to stabilize Christian and get his blood pressure back up.

Majher said Collins has been on their radar, not for threats to the school but “he has made threats via Facebook to the South Point Police Department. We have had dealings with him because of the domestic issues that he has with his wife and children which live here in South Point. We have been advised that there is a protection order out of Cabell County. So we were keeping an eye out for him, particularly after we start seeing posts on Facebook saying that he can outgun the South Point Police Department.”

“Obviously, he is talking some wild things,” Majher said. “It was something that we and the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office were well aware of with the threats he was making against law enforcement.”

Collins also had lacerations to his arms and was taken to St. Mary’s in Ironton before being transported to the Lawrence County Jail.

“We don’t know if those wounds came from his own weapon or from the glass breakage,” Majher said.

He said although Collins had made some threats, they didn’t expect the attack at the school to happen “because he hadn’t made any threats like that.”

Majher said the school staff followed established safety protocols and Collins never got out of the secured lobby until he was arrested by police.

The elementary school sent students home early and the high school and middle school were locked down.

Christian has been the South Point Elementary School principal since April, prior to that he had been the school’s assistant principal for 12 years. He replaced Chris Mathes as principal after Mathes became the school district’s superintendent.

Christian has a long career in education, before he became an assistant principal, he was science teacher at South Point High School, followed by 13 years as an intervention specialist at the elementary school. His first job in education was four years teaching at St. Joseph High School in Huntington, West Virginia.