The Taneytown Volunteer Fire Company named the wrong firefighter in a letter it sent the local NAACP president listing the volunteers involved in alleged racial harassment, the company’s lawyer said.

“[Fire company President] Mike Clapsaddle’s letter contained an error,” said Michelle Ostrander, the company’s attorney.

The Sept. 11 letter, sent from Clapsaddle to Charles Harrison, president of the Carroll County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, incorrectly listed Frank Penn Jr. instead of his son, Frank Penn III, as one of seven firefighters who faced sanctions, said Natalie Childs, Penn Jr.’s stepdaughter.

“I know of the incident, but I am not involved in the incident,” Penn Jr. told The Examiner on Friday. “They have the wrong person. Don’t put my name in the paper.”

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Penn Jr. would never discriminate and didn’t raise his son that way, Natalie Childs said.

The fire company’s only black volunteer, Pernell Hammond, 33, said his white colleagues racially harassed him while he worked as an emergency medical technician from March to July, alleging that fellow volunteers:

» Gave him a racial slur for a nickname;

» Downloaded racist music on the company’s computer;

» Pointed out black spectators during a New Windsor parade, telling Hammond, “Look, there are people like you.”

“It’s a good ol’ boys’ network, a bastion for bigoted, racist opinions,” Harrison said. The sanctions later were dropped because Hammond did not attend an appeals hearing, according to an Oct. 23 letter from Ostrander to Hammond.

Hammond said he didn’t attend because he was told not to bring a lawyer.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland launched an investigation last week into the alleged harassment, said Meredith Curtis, ACLU spokeswoman.

kvolkmann@baltimoreexaminer.com