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Man charged for confronting students while wearing gun

Police: He donned a holster, asked for their names

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

A Fayetteville man has been arrested for confronting three alternative school students in a shopping center Friday morning while wearing a holster loaded with a gun, police said.

Walter Kenneth Maupin, 46, of 340 Burch Rd., Fayetteville has been charged with disorderly conduct and disrupting a public school, according to warrants for his arrest.

Police said the confrontation in the parking lot of the Right on Thyme restaurant near the alternative school stemmed from Maupin’s concerns about the three boys hanging around his daughter, who also attends the school. Although he was unarmed when the altercation started, Maupin retreated to his vehicle and put on the holster before returning to the three youths, police said.

Maupin, who left the weapon in its holster, asked each of the three victims for their “names and information” and in return they asked if he was a police officer, according to Lt. Beverly Trainor of the Fayetteville Police Department.

Maupin replied that he was not a police officer, and the three victims began walking on a sidewalk back to the alternative school, Trainor said. As they walked to the school campus, Maupin drove by slowly before leaving the area.

The students then entered the school and alerted an administrator who called 911 to report the incident, Trainor said. The alternative school was then “locked down” and several schools in the immediate area were warned to take other precautions such as being on the alert for any suspicious visitors, including Fayette County High School, Fayetteville Intermediate and Hood Avenue Elementary, said schools spokeswoman Melinda Berry-Dreisbach.

Maupin is licensed to carry a firearm, but he is not a certified law enforcement officer, Trainor said.