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