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The town of Halfway sits a few miles west of the Snake River, in eastern Oregon.

(Richard Cockle/The Oregonian)

Elementary school teacher Linda McLean sat at her desk on a calm blue-sky Friday afternoon nearly two years ago when she heard the clatter of what sounded like a falling ladder, followed by running feet.

A man dressed in a black hoodie and goggles suddenly burst through her classroom door. He leveled a pistol at McLean's face and pulled the trigger. The terrified teacher heard gunfire, smelled smoke, felt her heart racing, she says.

"You're dead," the gunman said, and stalked out of her room.

But McLean was alive. The hooded man's gun was loaded with blanks, part of a surprise "active shooter" drill at Pine Eagle School District No. 61, a charter school in the tiny eastern Oregon town of Halfway. The gun-toting man was Shawn Thatcher, the school district's safety officer.

McLean was a casualty of what she now describes in a federal lawsuit as a harebrained drill in the middle of an in-service day - April 26, 2013 - that has left her with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The peculiar drill fell on the heels of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, which left 20 children and six adults dead, including deranged gunman Adam Lanza. A story in The Oregonian/OregonLive about the drill went viral.

Pine Eagle School District is located in the eastern Oregon town of Halfway.

The lawsuit names as defendants Thatcher, school administrators Michael "Mike" Corley and Cammie deCastro, seven members of the school board and Alpine Alarm Communications and Construction LLC. McLean accuses them of civil assault, emotional distress, false imprisonment, failing to protect her and supervise the staff, and depriving her of liberty without due process.

Representatives of the school district and Alpine Alarm (which sold, constructed, installed and maintained the school's security system) declined to comment on the lawsuit filed Friday in Portland's U.S. District Court.

The drill at Pine Eagle School District caught staffers at the school off guard, McLean's lawsuit alleges.

Members of the district's Safety Committee notified the Baker County Sheriff's Office and its 911 dispatch center in advance of the drill so that they wouldn't respond to an emergency at the school in case any of the school staff called.The sheriff's office also reviewed concealed-carry permits ahead of the drill to ensure that no teachers would fire back at Thatcher and school board member John Minarich, who also was armed and similarly attired.

Minarich was described in court papers as the principal and president of Alpine Alarm.

Thatcher and Minarich are accused of storming into several schoolrooms that day pointing their weapons at surprised teachers, firing blanks, and declaring them dead.

"Panic ensued," according to McLean's lawsuit. One teacher wet her pants. Another teacher tried to keep Minarich from entering his room and scuffled with the school board member, leaving the teacher's arm injured. Some teachers fell down trying to hide.

"McLean could not figure out what was going on," the complaint alleges. "She felt very confused. Her heart was racing. She walked out of the classroom and saw a pistol lying on the ground. ... She wondered if she was really shot and was going to die."

For an instant, McLean alleges, she thought perhaps it was OK to die. Then she thought about her daughter, who was pregnant, and grew angry that she wouldn't be around to help with the new baby.

"She looked at the pistol and wondered if she was supposed to pick it up and shoot someone," the lawsuit alleges.

McLean's complaint notes that at the conclusion of the drill, teachers gathered in the school library. It was a surreal scene. A sheriff's deputy was there with a police dog. Teachers were angry and confused, and some questioned Thatcher, Minarich and deCastro about their "disregard" for the staff's safety, the lawsuit alleges.

The 56-year-old McLean, who had had gone to work for the school district in 1982, left the meeting and went home feeling distraught.

"Ms. McLean was extremely shaken, confused and mentally, physically and emotionally ill," the complaint alleges. "She could not shake the event but continued to relive it and try to make sense of it, but could not. Ms. McLean could not sleep, and remained anxious and vigilant. When she drifted off to sleep, she experienced nightmares and sweating."

She went back to school the next Monday, but couldn't take it. Her physicians, including her psychologist, diagnosed her with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to her lawsuit.

"On the advice of her treating psychologist, Ms. McLean tried to return to the school building as part of a desensitization therapy," the complaint says. "However, when she returned she was short of breath, anxious, emotionally distressed, and had to leave. She has not returned to the school building since."

Her stance on the drill hasn't been entirely popular in Halfway, a ranching town that became world-famous 13 years ago as the globe's first "Internet city." (The city council changed Halfway's name to Half.com in return for $73,000 from a Philadelphia-based Internet bazaar of the same name.) Those who organized the drill have shunned McLean and, from time to time, treated her with hostility, the suit says.

McLain's complaint seeks economic damages for her involuntary separation from employment, her medical and psychological treatment, and the loss of retirement contributions and fringe benefits. She also seeks punitive damages and attorney fees.

-- Bryan Denson

503-294-7614; @Bryan_Denson