Yes, that’s right — ordered to undergo an “Emergency Mental Evaluation” for a fictional novel. In Maryland… The Atlantic reports:
From the Dept. of Insane and Dangerous Overreactions to Fictional Threats:
A 23-year-old teacher at a Cambridge, Maryland, middle school has been placed on leave and—in the words of a local news report—”taken in for an emergency medical evaluation” for publishing, under a pseudonym, a novel about a school shooting. The novelist, Patrick McLaw, an eighth-grade language-arts teacher at the Mace’s Lane Middle School, was placed on leave by the Dorchester County Board of Education, and is being investigated by the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office, according to news reports from Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The novel, by the way, is set 900 years in the future.
The report from WBOC:
He’s a man with many names, and the books he has written have raised the concerns of the Dorchester County Board of Education and the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office.
Early last week the school board was alerted that one of its eighth grade language arts teachers at Mace’s Lane Middle School had several aliases. Police said that under those names, he wrote two fictional books about the largest school shooting in the country’s history set in the future. Now, Patrick McLaw is placed on leave.
Dr. K.S. Voltaer is better known by some in Dorchester County as Patrick McLaw, or even Patrick Beale. Not only was he a teacher at Mace’s Lane Middle School in Cambridge, but according to Dorchester Sheriff James Phillips, McLaw is also the author of two books: “The Insurrectionist” and its sequel, “Lillith’s Heir.”
Those books are what caught the attention of police and school board officials in Dorchester County. “The Insurrectionist” is about two school shootings set in the future, the largest in the country’s history.
Phillips said McLaw was taken in for an emergency medical evaluation. The sheriff would not disclose where McLaw is now, but he did say that he is not on the Eastern Shore. The same day that McLaw was taken in for an evaluation, police swept Mace’s Lane Middle School for bombs and guns, coming up empty.
The Atlantic Continues:
Imagine that—a novelist who didn’t store bombs and guns at the school at which he taught. How improbable! Especially considering that he uses an “alias,” which is apparently the law-enforcement term for “nom de plume.” (Here is theAmazon page for The Insurrectionist, by the way. Please note that the book was published in 2011, before McLaw was hired.)
According to an equally credulous and breathless report in the Star-Democrat, which is published in Easton, Maryland, the combined efforts of multiple law-enforcement agencies have made area children safe from fiction. Sheriff Phillips told the newspaper that, in addition to a K-9 sweep of the school (!), investigators also raided McLaw’s home. “The residence of the teacher in Wicomico County was searched by personnel,” Phillips said, with no weapons found. “A further check of Maryland State Police databases also proved to be negative as to any weapons registered to him. McLaw was suspended by the Dorchester County Board of Education pending an investigation and is no longer in the area. He is currently at a location known to law enforcement and does not currently have the ability to travel anywhere.
Blogger reactions are as follows:
Jonathan Turley: “Unless there is some really chilling evidence that has not been uncovered, McLaw may have an extraordinary lawsuit in the making. Various news sites are reporting that McLaw was put through this nightmare because of his novels. If so, this is a ridiculous and abusive series of actions by both school and police officials. If there is something more, these officials need to be clear that there was some evidence beyond the novels that prompted these actions. No guns or bombs were found in the school or his home. So what is going on? As the novel states, it is “evident that the hysteria is far from over.”
InstaPundit: “These are the people you trust to educate your children, and keep your streets safe — and they’re complete, blithering idiots armed with the power of the state. Tar and feathers isn’t enough. And, really, isn’t it parental malpractice to put your kids in the hands of people who can’t tell truth from fiction?”
National Review’s Charles Cook writing at the corner says: “It is difficult to imagine a worse instinct in a free country. Because an American citizen wrote a fictional account of a shooting, he needs to be dealt with by the authorities? Well, if this is our standard, we’re going to have to arrest an awful lot of people — among them those who have written about rape, murder, arson, assault, embezzlement, and anything else that is prohibited under the law. If this were our historical approach, Agatha Christie would have been hanged. — At the root of this is a witless fear of firearms — one that has pervaded many of America’s schools since Sandy Hook and before. This fear has led to children beingsuspended for pointing their fingers at others and saying, “bang!”; forfashioning Pop Tarts into the shape of pistols; and for writing fictionalized accounts in which they kill fictional dinosaurs with fictional guns. It was only a matter of time before the paranoia reached the adult world. It is the job of every right-thinking person to ensure that it does not metastasize there.”
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All very good observations. Let me simply add to this that this is Government and the world that is to come. As a Christian and an Independent, Fundamental Baptist, I can say that the Bible predicts this sort of Government in the end times. Once the rapture of the Church takes place, the one world Government under the anti-Christ will be just like this or even worse.
This, along with many other things that have been printed in on this blog; are living proof that we are truly living in the last days, before Christ’s return.