A 42-year-old man is accused of walking onto the campus of a Lakeland elementary school, shouting at parents and students and then attacking the principal.
Principal Qvonda Birdsong, 47, said the man, who has since been arrested by deputies, walked into Oscar Pope Elementary at about 7:30 a.m. while students were arriving.
When the man reportedly threatened employees, an assistant ran outside to get Birdsong. Birdsong came into the office and asked the man if she could help him, which is when the man attacked her, Birdsong said.
Birdsong said the man punched her three or four times, bruising her arm.
"I said, 'What can I do for you,' not quite sure," she said. "But he said, 'You can get the' several explicits, and literally in two steps, he was all over me. Just kind of hitting me like this. So I turned this way to back out the door. And that's when the custodian stepped in."
She got away from him, and then she, along with other staff members, isolated him in the office, she said.
Birdsong said she then ran out of the school to get an officer who was near campus. The officers arrested the man, who was later identified as Elester Trudell, 42.
No children saw the attack, and some were kept in the cafeteria until he was removed by officers, officials said.
Officials said Trudell is not a parent of a student at the school. Birdsong said she is not sure what motivated the attack.
Trudell is also accused of hitting a woman on Iowa Road before the attack at the school.
Trudell has been booked into the Polk County Jail several times in the past on drug, battery and trespassing charges.