Secret Service nabs man sought near Mt. Vernon (UALR Public Radio) - A man who ran from Secret Service agents who wanted to talk to him about having "undue interest" in someone under the agency's protection was caught late Thursday afternoon and questioned by investigators.

The capture of the man being sought, identified as Melvin Maples, 32, of Enola, occurred after authorities deliberately scaled back the presence and visibility of agents and local officers around the house where Maples lived with his mother on Arkansas 310, Faulkner County sheriff's Maj. Andy Shock told Little Rock television station KATV.

"We did a tactical retreat" about 3:30 p.m., Shock said. "We pulled out, but we didn't pull everyone out. He came up to the house, just like we anticipated he would. We wanted him to get comfortable and come home, and that's what happened."

Brian Marr, a spokesman for the Little Rock office of the Secret Service, told Little Rock radio station KUAR that Maples had made no overt threat against anybody. Faulkner County Sheriff Karl Byrd said the subject was to be questioned about statements regarding Chelsea Clinton, but Marr told the station Clinton was not the subject. Marr wouldn't name the person at issue.

Byrd said the man may have a gun and had recently made unusual claims in calls to the sheriff's office.

"He has called us with strange calls, 'This is (country singer) Kenny Chesney. Someone stole my tour bus.' Or, 'This is Lt. Gary Moore. I found Kenny Chesney's tour bus in a shed,'" Byrd said.

Sheriff's deputies accompanied the Secret Service to interview the man, Byrd said.

Several police agencies took part in setting a perimeter around a wooded area near where the man ran from police, Shock said, and the Mount Vernon-Enola School was also locked down as a precaution.

Shock said an investigation revealed Maples "was not violent, only mentally unstable. He had no friends in the area, and no cell phone, and so the only logical conclusion would be to return home."

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