Maryland teacher gets disappeared for writing fictional book about school shooting

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/08/28/police-teacher-placed-on-leave-for-authoring-fictional-book-of-the-largest-school-massacre/


WTF? Where the hell is he?

Disappearing people and not disclosing where they are?

The NYPD tried to do this to a whistle blower a few years ago






http://www.activistpost.com/2012/03/nypd-officer-thrown-in-psych-ward-by.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/nyregion/officer-adrian-schoolcraft-forcibly-hospitalized-got-no-apology-just-a-bill.html?_r=0

Did he ever get a judgment and payout?

I cannot say how much I hate Bloomberg. NYPD was nothing but his personal Praetorian guard and he even referred to them as his private army. He's a megalomaniac and dangerous individual, imo. Look how fast those corrupt goons turned on this guy. Anything for a paycheck. They should all be in prison, right up to Bloomberg and Kelly.

That cooking the books on violent crime is also done in London. Coincidentally, Bloomberg said he wanted NYC to be just like London. I'm sure that meant a totally controlled, Orwellian police state in service to millionaires and billionaires. Can't accurately report crime because it might scare away investment, conventions, tourists and whatnot.

If true though he should imo be awarded millions for it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/nyregion/whistle-blower-police-officer-had-backup-secret-recordings.html

I guess he's lucky they didn't pull a Serpico on him because they're that corrupt.

this man being ABDUCTED for being a writer of fiction, why in the hell would he be taken out of the area? Maryland doesn't have adequate interrogation facilities? Is he at Gitmo? Is the PATRIOT Act being used against him? I want to know where he is. Damn this could happen to anyone!

x 10000000000

---need to follow this....

I'm not that surprised that the police and school are overreaching in response to this. Given the calls some make to do 'whatever is necessary' to prevent future shootings, it's no real suprise that a school teacher writing school shooting fantasies under a fake name got disappeared.

Hell, if this happened a week or so after a widely reported shooting then most comments here would be supporting it.

Most commenters here would be against disappearing a teacher or anyone else no matter what day of the week it was, what disapearee did, & or what happened yesterday.

Most commenters here support democracy & disappearing people really doesn't have any overlap w/ democracy.

ps, I say"most" b/c trolls.

Hard to imagine that they indicated a real threat today.

Majority would not have
Most people here recognize the difference between a novel and an actual threat

I find it disturbing that you seem okay that he has been 'disappeared.'

But it seems really odd - an rather creepy - to make this man vanish.

Just wondering if that might be the case....

...?

... the simplest explanations are often the most likely

It's my default preference, absent compelling evidence to the contrary.

That the man must have done something wrong because LE is so above reproach?

No.

What do you mean?

It's not at all unheard of for officers to be asked to check out X, and find no evidence of X, yet find an individual in need of psychiatric care.

But I think all the previous poster was saying is that a large conspiracy is less likely than something simpler.

made an overwrought report to the police, who followed up by charging in, scaring the teacher half to death, and using his reaction as the reason -- along with the book -- to pull him in for a psych evaluation.

What we know:

The police acknowledge finding no guns or other weapons.

The school shooting book was written three years ago.

The "aliases" consisted of pen names he used on his two books, and a legal name change at the age of 18. (Something not uncommon in children with complicated family situations.)

He passed a background check for teachers a year ago.

What makes the situation even more ridiculous is that the books were science fiction, set centuries in the future.

(beyond the constitution and human rights being destroyed at the federal level), I see a shift in what this country has turned into where law enforcement and the judicial system are completely corrupt and unaccountable, the mental health system colludes with them, and people can be disappeared with no recourse. I'd be willing to bet that some anti terrorist BS law provided the pretext for his abduction.

You don't have to be a "conspiracy theorist" to see that things are seriously fucked up.

reported him to the police, the police went charging in looking for weapons, frightened the young man half to death, and used his reaction as a pretext for taking him for a psych evaluation.

This was a 23 year old teacher who had been nominated for a best teacher award.
Who had passed a background check the year before.
Who had written a book about a school shooting while he was still a college student.
Who had written another book, online published last fall, about a militaristic government.
Who wrote his fantasy novels under pen names.
Who went to Court to get a legal name change, for personal reasons, when he was 18.
Whose apartment contained no weapons or anything else the police were expecting to find.

Who was young. And scary. And black.

That's the simplest explanation, IMHO.

Sure HOPE that's it.

--but these days privacy is not often protected.

I hope you're right, but I fear not.

There was some sort of incident at the local McDonald's, and the news report quoted the police chief as saying he couldn't release the man involved''s name or location because he had been transported to 'a medical facility' for a mental-health evaluation.

They are the ones saying they investigated him because of the novel he wrote three years ago -- not because of anything he did now.

Rather odd, but possibly it just now came to their attention?

the police didn't find a single questionable thing in their search.

All I meant was that when they did encounter him, he may have exhibited signs of some sort of a mental-health problem.

And the police can, if they want, take people in for "mental health problems," if they can trump up enough evidence. In this case all they had was a book about a school massacre, used it as a pretext to search his house. They found nothing. What now?

Seems like this guy was a big advocate for getting people published online and helped one of his students get published. I have to wonder if that's what got the target on his back. Once someone found out he wrote those books they called him a psycho.

Or did I miss something in the article that says what they did or didn't find?

You are correct that he could still fail the presumed psyche exam.

If he passes, then the cops need to explain why they got him in the first place.

That doesn't mean they didn't find a man suffering some sort of mental-health problem.

and they used his reaction (or his righteous anger) as an excuse to pull him in for a psych eval.

--will writers of fiction that deals with dangerous subjects need to have previous "clearance" to write them?

Wrote the books 3 years ago
No reports of unusual behavior
Man had no guns

other court action; otherwise, there is a gross violation of due process. Folks, keep tabs on this.

... were these books actually published? Who brought this to the attention of the school board? The publisher? Did he have an arsenal in his home? Did he have his class reading True Crime novels? You'll have to admit, who would even entertain the thought of writing a book about school shootings? He's probably in a mental institution somewhere going through every mental exam they've got and waiting while someone makes up some more tests for him.

was published in 2011 -- so maybe he wrote it as a college student. The sequel, a dystopian novel about a militaristic government, was published last fall.

They searched his home and found nothing. No weapons of any kind. No arsenal.

Lots of writers I'm sure have thought about writing a book about school shootings -- every time there is one. Writers often base their novels on current events.

Stephen King wrote a book about an enraged girl who set her school on fire. No one's arrested him yet.

Yet!

what he's been doing under those alternate identities versus some online books he'd written on a touchy subject...I'm hard-pressed to think of any legit, wholesome reason why a 23-year-old would need or want multiple identities -- If he didn't disclose them on his job application, he's as good as fired...

I know school systems are desperate (especially for male teachers of color), but I'm beginning to wonder how he even got hired...I had to go under a very extensive background check just to be a substitute teacher several years back...

I may have read wrongly into it, but when I see "alias", I'm thinking he has a driver's licence/SSN/passport/etc. and presented himself in public under those names...

If all he's done is write some online sci-fi fanfic, then yes this is an overreaction...

When all he was really accused of doing was writing these dumb novels under pen names.

The subject matter of the novel was bound to raise concerns. His worst crime may be naivete.

... Stephen King. Exactly. Think of all the novels he's written and all the movies. I bet you the "militaristic government" book is the one that they zeroed in on.

might phrase it, the alias Richard Bachman.

What does that mean? Writers write fiction about all sorts of ghastly stuff. Not my cuppa but some of the best selling authors write horror and crime novels. Should they be disappeared or brought in for psych evaluations?

If this were even remotely on the up and up - as in evidence implicating this man in planning or committing a crime - we would be hearing from his lawyer, not the cops or the school board. He probably doesn't even have a lawyer because he's been taken away, to some unknown place, "out of the area". There is no excuse for that. This smacks of the PATRIOT Act.

... I didn't read the article linked to the OP.

We don't "disappear" people in this country. The young man needs to be freed immediately.

WTF is happening in this GD country?

with criminals pretending to be acting in the name of the law. At any time, anyone can end up like this guy, or shot dead, and it's all business as usual. We live in a Nazi state, now.

No he did NOT have an arsenal

From an earlier reply

“The residence of the teacher in Wicomico County was searched by personnel,” Phillips said, with no weapons found, reports WBOC.”A further check of Maryland State Police databases also proved to be negative as to any weapons registered to him.

under his Richard Bachman pseudonym. I don't see the issue.

... either there is more to this story than meets the eye, or someone has overreacted badly.

-- Mal

But a man having multiple identities and applying to be a schoolteacher is highly suspicious, imo

Multiple a/k/a's would cause my eyebrows to get twitchy.

that he wrote the stories under his "aliases," which means they are equating using a pen name with having an alias.

"...Dr. K.S. Voltaer is better known by some in Dorchester County as Patrick McLaw, or even Patrick Beale....".

Read in context, that sentence clearly refers to 'Patrick Beale being an alias, not a nom de plume.

the mistakes, like a giant game of telephone.

It will be interesting to hear the final outcome, if we ever do.

My observations have been strictly based on taking the article 'at face value'.

He changed his name through the courts when he was 18. That's not the same as using an "alias."

When young adults do that, it's often because they are either dropping or adding a father's name; or for some other perfectly legitimate reason. If it was an "alias," he wouldn't have gone to court to make it official.

http://www.myeasternshoremd.com/news/dorchester_county/article_f34bc33b-0a51-5217-a3a7-62bce57ca631.html

They taught us the difference at Drake U. Law School.

by the police.

I only found the one article that mentioned he had his name changed in court, in 2009 (which would have made him 18). That puts a different perspective on all this talk of aliases.

Most message boards are really upset about this, and for good reason.

I want to know who reported him if that's what happened (and I'm not ruling out that there was an investigation that discovered the writings and it's being portrayed wrong, but I just don't get that feeling on this one).

Bulmer's pseudonyms include Alan Burt Akers, Frank Brandon, Rupert Clinton, Ernest Corley, Peter Green, Adam Hardy, Philip Kent, Bruno Krauss, Karl Maras, Manning Norvil, Chesman Scot, Nelson Sherwood, Richard Silver, H. Philip Stratford and Tully Zetford.

highly suspicious?

his named changed for personal reasons. He wanted his father's name, because he wanted his father to accept him.

If they really did arrest this guy just because they found out he wrote these books, I will be quite upset.

--imm

I want to know who ratted him out. What a shifty group of cronyists. Someone had to have ratted him out, said he was acting suspicious, and that compelled the police to get him a psyche eval.

At least his books get noticed I suppose.

it said it was a prosecutor's office. Did someone just stumble upon his book on FB or Amazon and decide he needed to be targeted?

Amazon has strict terms of service and privacy policy.

It's unclear whether the book was discovered after suspicious activity or not. If he was acting weird, then, OK, perhaps it could've come up during an investigation. But if it is as it sounds, that the book was what was part of the investigation which prompted the psyche eval, then I think someone had to have found out about it, found it repulsive, and decided it merited a call to police.

Get questioned over some stupid crap that isn't even on your mind (you probably chose the subject matter because it's close to your job environment and you can easily take cues from the environment). Get defensive because of other events you've been hearing about people being questioned by unruly officers. Pow, psyche eval.

He probably did become very upset -- as anyone would -- and they used that as an excuse.

And he did worry about the implications if those narratives were keyed to him, as a teacher, which is why he chose a pseudonym (which is perfectly fine, there is no rule about pseudonym usage).

US thoughtcrime gulag.

That's what jumps out at me. He's a young black man. When I seen his face in that article (after I read the thing, sorry to everyone for not doing that in the first place). When nothing else makes sense, then I see his face. Someone needs to sic Lawrence O'Donnell on this.

And this guy looks highly intelligent, articulate, and generally a good person. I think you could get him upset if you got in his face and accused him of something he knew, deep down, he didn't do. That's the messed up thing about law enforcement. They say if you're too calm about an incident, it means you're guilty, and if you're upset about a false accusation, it means you're guilty.

Basically guilty until proven innocent is really the name of the game.

his day job and devote himself to writing full time.

and that he is actually set free and not permanently traumatized.

--most slanted hand-picked juries are not on the side of intellectual freedom. They don't do nuance. It will be painted as a possible threat to the school children. "Just doin our job --a little too well..." if he has been detained without evidence (which it looks like but we don't know) --this will be the defense. Never mind the constitution. At best, he'd just get an apology. You're also assuming he can afford to sue.

In theory the laws may be there, in application it may not matter what they say.

and if it were just a matter of the cops checking him out, I would probably agree, but the part about snatching him into the mental health system the way the Soviets used to do, combined with the recent raising of awareness because of Ferguson, would make his chances of winning much greater, as long as he has even a halfway competent attorney.

I don't see that kind of justice very often in the typical case like this. He would have to get an awful lot of backing behind him and the best of attorneys. In this kind of case they can easily stack the jury with people who don't really understand the intellectual freedom arguments whatsoever.

seeing what constitutes punishable thought crime in a supposedly free society.

I also don't know much about this story (does anyone?). The thought I have is why a school teacher thought it was a good idea to write a novel about a school shooting.

all sorts of stories that you might not think are a good idea. People are also informed by their interests and environment. As a writer and a teacher, a novel about a school shooting sounds like something he got ideas about from RL events and may have been more on his mind than someone who is not a teacher. Would you be suspicious of a cop who writes murder mysteries?

of school shootings by the time he was in college.

sinister shadowy group the government is trying to destroy.

I have not read the books, but the school shooting, as described in the first book's blurb, sounds integral to the dystopian plot.

Tom Clancy might need to seek asylum somewhere, condidering the subjects of some of his novels.

bring Minority Report to life?

He probably got the idea from various school shootings that occurred when he was in high school.

Stephen King wrote a book about a girl who, in a rage, set her school on fire. No one arrested him, but he wasn't young and black.

Similar to students who write a class assignment and get arrested.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025423012

nothing new about him or his whereabouts. Just reinforcing the security/keeping us safe meme.

What is the reason for him being detained? And what part of Ferguson is this?

He does have a somewhat frightening look.

and it makes more (though not complete) sense.

Snip is from page 2 of the article linked:

UPDATE (September 2, 2:51 p.m.): According to The Los Angeles Times, a law enforcement official is saying that McLaw drew the attention of authorities not because of his books, but because of a "a four-page letter to officials in Dorchester County." The report goes on to say, "Those concerns brought together authorities from multiple jurisdictions, including health authorities."

The story goes on to state, "McLaw's letter was of primary concern to healthcare officials, Maciarello says. It, combined with complaints of alleged harassment and an alleged possible crime from various jurisdictions led to his suspension. Maciarello cautions that these allegations are still being investigated; authorities, he says, "proceeded with great restraint."

I'm glad local authorities are releasing more information about McLaw, but these are the same authorities who last week told the press that McLaw was removed from his job because he wrote novels about a school shooting under a pseudonym (see, for instance, this CBS story: "Police: Md. Teacher Placed on Leave for Authoring Fictional Book of the ‘Largest School Massacre". I've been trying to get the sheriff of Dorchester County on the phone, to no avail. It would be useful at this point for the authorities to get their story straight.

UPDATE II (September 2, 5:37 p.m.)

I just got off the phone with Matthew A. Maciarello, the state's attorney for Wicomico County, Md., where McLaw lives -- he taught in Dorchester County, which responded to his various troubles by sending K-9 units through the schools in search of bombs and guns. Maciarello told me that the issues here have less to do with McLaw's books and the overall state of his mental health. When I asked him if Dorchester authorities led the press -- and public -- to believe that McLaw was being removed from his job because of the books he had written, Maciarello said, "We have a different way in Wicomico County. I can't speak for Dorchester." (The Dorchester sheriff has not returned my phone calls seeking comment.)

"From our perspective, this was more about a health concern about Mr. McLaw than about a security issue," Maciarello said. Authorities grew concerned about McLaw after he sent a "four-page letter" to a school administrator over the summer. According to Maciarello, the letter contained no threats against schools or school personnel, but that it indicated that McLaw was not mentally sound. "Health care professionals were concerned, he was in a relationship that had just come to an end, he was talking about his mother as being overbearing, there was some thought that he could be a threat to himself." Based on the "totality of the circumstances," Maciarello said, McLaw was involuntarily committed for evaluation. Among those circumstances: Authorities said that McLaw had built a model of a school building in his home, and had asked an administrator to move classrooms, to one near the "point of ingress and egress" of the school.

Yes, I too was underwhelmed by that response. I asked Maciarello if the novels McLaw had self-published had been a factor in county decision-making: "The books are a factor," he said. "You cannot consider the total picture without knowing that he had this book, this other writing. This was very concerning to the administrators. It's 2014 -- you can't have a person who has mental issues, someone who's complaining about his mother, complaining about teachers -- it's all taken into totality. It was a very restrained response, actually. We didn't freak-out because of the books. The main impetus was the four-page letter. It was just out there, you know, it wasn't something you give to your employer. To quote our health officer, it was a cry for help." One other thing: "He had some Columbine material at his house."

I asked for specifics. He said the "Columbine material" consisted of a report on the infamous Colorado school shooting. It could have been meant for research for his novels, I suggested.

"Absolutely, that could be true. We played all the angles on that. You can't just dismiss every little thing in a situation like this, in 2014." He went on to say, "If someone wrote a novel about school shootings it wouldn't concern me. I person is allowed to follow their pursuits. I love fiction. I love expression. But some citizens did react to this, there were citizen complaints based on the book, but this wasn't an overreaction. If you add this to the model of a school that he was building -- is this a tortured artist, or is this someone obsessed about schools? But I don't know how this story got out there that he was placed on leave because of these books. The main concern here is therapeutic, that he gets the help he needs."

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/in-cambridge-md-a-soviet-style-punishment-for-a-novelist/379431/