An Eastern Shore teacher was put on leave and taken for medical evaluation after authorities grew concerned about his writings including a novel about a school shooting and a letter with "suicidal undertones" and a model he constructed at his home of a school building.

But with authorities initially supplying few details, the case of 24-year-old Patrick Wayne McLaw blew up online. Commentators from across the political spectrum worried that his rights were being trampled by an overreaching government that was policing the teacher's thoughts rather than his actions.

Mike A. Lewis, sheriff of Wicomico County, where McLaw lives with his mother, said the teacher's writings which include two self-published novels and a four-page letter he allegedly sent last month to a school official in Dorchester along with the model in his backyard, raised legitimate fears.

McLaw was put on leave with pay from his job as a language arts teacher at Mace's Lane Middle School in Cambridge before the school year began last week, Dorchester County school officials said.

McLaw has not been charged with any crime. Attorney David Moore told The Los Angeles Times that his client is "receiving treatment."

When McLaw was taken for a medical evaluation last month at Peninsula Regional Medical Center, local news organizations noted the two novels he published under the pen name "Dr. K.S. Voltaer."

One, set in 2902, details a massacre at Ocean Park High School, claiming the lives of 947 individuals "the largest school massacre in the nation's history," according to its description on Amazon.com.

McLaw's mother, Kay White, declined to discuss the allegations against him. But she said the school model, so large that McLaw erected a building in their backyard to house it, was just something he enjoyed making.

McLaw's attorney could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Wicomico County State's Attorney Matthew A. Maciarello said the news media has mischaracterized the case as McLaw's being persecuted for writing fiction.

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Eastern Shore teacher removed for troubling writing