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.

911 dispatch got a call about the principal being stabbed by a parent around 1:41 p.m. Thursday and that the suspect was still in the building.

According to South Point Police Chief Chris Majher, an altercation began when Joshua Collins, of 924 Turner Road, 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.”

As this situation was developing the school went into immediate lockdown. No children were harmed during this incident.

In a press release, Lawrence County Sheriff Jeff Lawless said that Collins had been upset over a child custody issue and as Christian was talking with Collins, Collins pulled a knife from his pocket and began to stab Christian in the neck and upper torso.

Christian fled back into the office behind a locked door, at which point Collins broke the glass out of the window in the door and entered the office. Collins pursued Christian through multi parts of the office and finally into the cafeteria area.

A South Point Officer confronted Collins and took him into custody.

Christian was treated by a school nurse until EMS arrived 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 St. Mary’s Hospital in Hutington, West Virginia, 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 Hosptial with deputies in the ambulance.

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

A warrant was issued for Collins for felonious assault and he was arrested by the Huntington Police Department. An extradition hearing will be held on Collins prior to him being returned to Lawrence County to face charges. Additional charges will be filed on Collins as the investigation continues.

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 with the schools going into immediate lockdown and students being sent home early.

School was canceled on Friday.

The crime scene was being processed by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

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.