SANDPOINT - A felony charge against a Sandpoint man implicated in a stabbing is being upgraded to attempted murder.

Tyler John Bowlby-Brooks made an initial appearance Friday in Bonner County Magistrate Court via video link with the Bonner County Jail. Judge Debra Heise set Bowlby-Brooks' bail at $250,000 and appointed a public defender to represent him.

A hearing to determine if there's enough evidence to proceed to trial is slated to be held later this month.

Bowlby-Brooks, 18, was arrested on suspicion of aggravated battery after the stabbing in the 1400 block of Church Street on New Year's Eve.

The alleged victim, a 19-year-old from Ponderay, was stabbed in the left side of the neck and left side of his ribcage, Sandpoint Police reports said. He was treated at Kootenai Health and later released.

Bonner County Prosecutor Louis Marshall said both wounds barely missed vital arteries.

"It missed the carotid artery by not much," Marshall said of the neck wound.

Bowlby-Brooks told police that he was not trying to kill the alleged victim and was acting in self-defense. He told investigators that he had been beaten on two prior occasions and also was threatened by the alleged victim, according to court documents.

Accounts conflict as to how the alleged victim and a 22-year-old Sandpoint man came to be on Bowlby-Brooks' doorstep on Wednesday night.

The alleged victim said Bowlby-Brooks invited him to come to his residence, but Bowlby-Brooks said the alleged victim and the 22-year-old showed up uninvited.

The alleged victim told police he went to confront Bowlby-Brooks about pushing around his 17-year-old girlfriend, who is Bowlby-Brooks' ex-girlfriend. Bowlby-Brooks told police she hit him earlier that day and was claiming to the alleged victim that it was vice versa.

Bowlby-Brooks told investigators that the alleged victim threatened to beat him up and he armed himself with a knife. He swung it, but was unsure if he made contact.

Bowlby-Brooks also believed the 22-year-old had a weapon. The man admitted to police that he had a pellet gun, but said he never displayed or brandished it, according to police reports in the case.

Bowlby-Brooks said the alleged victim said, "Shoot him! Shoot him!" upon being stabbed.

But the alleged victim's girlfriend paints Bowlby-Brooks as the aggressor and claimed that he stated in unambiguous terms that he wanted to kill the alleged victim, court records indicate.

Dick Bowlby, the defendant's grandfather, contends that the alleged victim and his friends provoked the altercation.

"They've been harassing him for the last four to five months," Bowlby said.