A 19-year-old Alabama councilman is apologizing after a state political website unearthed social media posts the councilman made in 2018 suggesting protesters should be run over.

Decatur councilman Hunter Pepper responded to the revelations during a news conference.

The Facebook post was made when Pepper was just 16 and came in response to a story about protests following the fatal 2018 police shooting at the Galleria Mall in Hoover.

“See I have to go shopping there next week and we gone play a game called red rover red rover you fools gone get ran over!” Pepper wrote.

Now 19, Pepper now represents District 4 in Decatur. He is in his first term. On Saturday, Pepper responded to the current situation.

“My past has come back to bite me in the butt,” Pepper said.

During the conference, he said his post was extremely arrogant and very ignorant.

“There is nothing in that post that mentions race whatsoever,” Pepper said. “Unfortunately, it took a turn in that direction to involve race. I am extremely disappointed in myself at that moment in time. I’m not a racist individual, and don’t like racism and am extremely sorry how that turned out.”

The Councilman said he should have made better decisions in his juvenile past. “My past is something that I tried to look back on and say I could have done a lot better. I could have made a lot better decisions.”

One of Pepper’s fellow council members said an apology was not enough and that Pepper should resign. Seven-term Councilman Billy Jackson told Al.com that Pepper had more than two years to admit he made a mistake is only making an apology now because he was caught. Jackson said Pepper doesn’t need to be representing residents in Decatur as a result of his comments.